Fletcherism, what it is; or, How I became young at sixty

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FLETCHERISM

What it is

Horace Fletcher

A,B. C, Life Serie.

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FLETCHERISM: WHAT IT IS

HORACE Fletcher's works

THE A.B.-Z. OF OUR OWN NUTRITION.

Thirty-fourth thousand. 462 pp.
THE NEW MENTICULTURE; or, The

A-B-C OF True Living. Fifty-third

thousand. 310 pp.
THE NEW GLUTTON OR EPICURE;

OR, Economic Nutrition. Eighteenth

thousand. 344 pp.
HAPPINESS AS FOUND IN Forethought

MINUS Fearthought. Fifteenth thousand.

251 pp.
THAT LAST WAIF; or, Social Quaran-
tine. Sixth thousand. 270 pp.

FLETCHERISM: What It Is; or, How
I Became Young at Sixty. Fourth
thousand. 240 pp.

The Author

FLETCHERISM

WHAT IT IS

OR

HOW I BECAME YOUNG
AT SIXTY

,BY

HORACE FLETCHER, A.M.

Fellow American Association for the Advancement of Science

THIRD EDITION

NEW YORK

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

PUBLISUERS

COPYRIGHT, I913, BY
HORACE FLETCHER

/^x^-i-ouirhi

□

SepCeniber," ig^j ^ >

THE- PLIMPTON*PRE88
NORWOOD«MA8S«U'S'A

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

INTRODUCTION ix

PREFACE xi

I HOW I BECAME A FLETCHERITE . i

II SCIENTIFIC TESTS iS

III WHAT I AM ASKED ABOUT

FLETCHERISM 32

IV RULES OF FLETCHERISM ... 51
V WHAT IS PROPER MASTICATION? 64

VI WHAT IS HEAD DIGESTION? . . n

VII CHITTENDEN ON CAREFUL

CHEWING 84

VIII THE THREE INCHES OF PER-
SONAL RESPONSIBILITY ... 91

IX QUESTION PRESCRIPTION AND

PROSCRIPTION 104

X WHAT CONSTITUTES A FLETCH-
ERITE 116

XI ALL DECENT EATERS ARE

FLETCHERITES 126

XII FLETCHERIZING AS A TEMPER-
ANCE EXPEDIENT 138

XIII THE MENACE OF MODERN MIXED

MENUS 158

XIV THE CRUX OF FLETCHERISM . . 170

XV FLETCHERISM AND VEGETARI-
ANISM 180

APPENDIX 197

INDEX 221

[V]

392203

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Author Frontispiece

The Author Testing His Endurance by Means
of the Kellogg Mercurial Dynamometer . . i6

The Author Undergoing a Test at Yale When
He Made a World's Record on the Irving
Fisher Endurance Testing Machine ... 28

The Author Feeling Himself to Be the Most
Fortunate Person Alive 70

Horace Fletcher in His Master of Arts Robes . 98

The Author, on his Sixtieth Birthday, Perform-
ing Feats of Agility and Strength which
Would Be Remarkable Even in a Young
Athlete 100

[vii]

INTRODUCTION

Fletcherism has become a fact
A dozen years ago it was laughed at
as the "chew-chew" cult; to-day the
most famous men of Science endorse it
and teach its principles. Scientific
leaders at the world's foremost Univer-
sities — Cambridge, England ; Turin,
Italy; Berne, Switzerland; La Sor-
bonne, France; Berlin, Prussia; Brus-
sels, Belgium; St. Petersburg, Russia;
as well as Harvard, Yale and Johns
Hopkins in America — have shown
themselves in complete accord with Mr.
Fletcher's teachings.

The intention of the present volume
is that it shall stand as a compact state-
ment of the Gospel of Fletcherism,
whereas his other volumes treat the
subject more at length and are devoted
to different phases of Mr. Fletcher's
philosophy. The author here relates
[ix]

fletcherism: what it is

briefly the story of his regeneration, of
how he rescued himself from the pros-
pect of an early grave, and brought
himself to his present splendid physical
and mental condition. He tells of the
discovery of his principles, which have
helped millions of people to live better,
happier, and healthier lives.

Mr. Fletcher writes with all his well-
known literary charm and vivacity,
which have won for his works such a
wide-spread popular demand.

It is safe to say that no intelligent
reader will peruse this work without
becoming convinced that Mr. Fletcher's
principles as to eating and living are
the sanest that have ever been pro-
pounded; that Fletcherism demands no
heroic sacrifices of the enjoyments that
go to make life worth living, but, to the
contrary, that the path to Dietetic
Righteousness, which Mr. Fletcher
would have us tread, must be the pleas-
antest of all life's pleasant ways.

THE PUBLISHERS

PREFACE

'What is good for the richest man in the world,
must he also good for the poorest, and all in be-
tween." Daily Express, London, May isth, 1913.

This quotation was apropos of an
announcement in the Evening Mail, of
New York, telling that the Twentieth
Century Croesus and financial philoso-
pher, John D. Rockefeller, had uttered
a Confession of his Faith in the funda-
mental principles of Dietetic Righteous-
ness and General Efficiency as follows:

'*Don't gobble your food. Fletcher-
ize, or chew very slowly while you eat.
Talk on pleasant topics. Don't be in a
hurry. Take time to masticate and
cultivate a cheerful appetite while you
eat. So will the demon indigestion be
encompassed round about and his
slaughter complete."

At the time this compendium of phys-
[xi]

fletcherism: what it is

iological and psychological wisdom
concerning the source of health, com-
fort, and happiness came to my notice
J was engaged in furnishing my pub-
lishers with a "compact statement of
the Gospel of Fletcherism," as they call
it, and hence the able assistance of Mr.
Rockefeller was welcomed most cor-
dially. Here it was in a nutshell, crys-
tallized, compact, refined, monopolized
as to brevity of description, masterly,
and practically leaving little more to be
said.

The Grand Old Man of Democracy
in England, William Ewart Gladstone,
had had his say on the same subject
some years before, and will be known to
the future of physiological fitness more
permanently on account of his glorifi-
cation of Head Digestion of food than
for his Liberal Statesmanship.

In like manner, Mr. Rockefeller will
deserve more gratitude from posterity
for having prescribed the secret of high-
est mental and physical efficiency in
[xii]

PREFACE

thirty-three words, than for the multi-
ple millions he is dedicating to Science
and Sociological Betterment.

It will be interesting, however, to
seekers after supermanish health and
strength to know how the author took
the "straight tip" of Mr. Gladstone, and
"worked it for all it was worth" until
Mr. Rockefeller referred to the process
of common-sense involved as "Fletch-
erizing." «

I assure you it is an interesting story.
It has taken nearly fifteen years to bring
the development to the point where Mr.
Rockefeller, who is carefulness personi-
fied when it comes to committing him-
self for publication, is willing to express
his opinion on the subject. It has cost
the author unremitting, completely-ab-
sorbing, and prayerful concentration of
attention, and nearly twenty thousand
pounds sterling ($100,000), spent in fos-
tering investigations and securing pub-
licity of the results of the inquiries, with
some of the best people in Science, Medi-
[xiii]

fletcherism: what it is

cine, and Business helping him with
generous assistance, to accompHsh this
triumph of natural sanity.

In addition to other co-operation, and
the most effective, perhaps, it is appro-
priate to say that there is scarcely a
periodical published in all the world,
either technical, news-bearing, or other-
wise, on the staff of which there has not
been some member who has not received
some personal benefit from the sugges-
tions carried by the economic system
now embodied in the latest dictionaries
of many nations as "Fletcherism."

The first rule of "Fletcherism" is to
feel gratitude and to express apprecia-
tion for and of all the blessings which
Nature, intelligence, civilization, and
imagination bring to mankind ; and this
utterance will be endorsed, I am sure,
by the millions of persons who have
found economy, health, and general hap-
piness through attention to the require-
ments of dietetic righteousness. It will
be especially approved by those who, like
[xiv]

PREFACE

Mr. Rockefeller, gained new leases of
life after having burned the candle of
prudence at both ends and in the middle,
to the point of nearly going out, in the
struggle for money.

Yet the secret of preserving natural
efficiency is even more valuable than
cure or repair of damages due to care-
lessness and over-strain. In this re-
spect the simple rules of Fletcherizing,
embodying the requirements of Nature
in co-operative nutrition, are made
effective by formulating exercises
whereby habit-of-conf ormity is formed,
and takes command of the situation so
efficiently, that no more thought need
be given to the matter than is necessary
in regard to breathing, quenching thirst,
or observing "the rule of the road'' in
avoiding collisions in crowded public
thoroughfares.

Mr. Rockefeller's thirty-three words
not only comprise the practical gist of
Fletcherism, but also state the most im-
portant fact, that by these means the

[XV]

FLETCHERISM : WHAT IT IS

real dietetic devil, the devil of devils, is
kept at a safe distance.

The mechanical act of mastication is
easy to manage ; but this is not all there
IS to head digestion. Bad habits of in-
attention and indifference have to be
conquered before good habits of deliber-
ation and appreciation are formed.
These requirements of healthy nutrition
have been studied extensively and ana-
lyzed thoroughly, to the end that we
know that they may be acquired with
ease if sought with serious interest and
respect.

I began the preface by quoting the
statement that "What is good for the
richest man in the world must be also
good for the poorest, and all in be-
tween." I will close by asserting that

"Doing the right thing in securing right
nutrition is easier than not if you only
know how."

[xvi]

FLETCHERISM:

WHAT IT IS

CHAPTER I

HOW I BECAME A FLETCHERITE

My Turning Point — 'How I had Ignored My Re-
sponsibility — What Happens during Mastication —
The Four Principles of Fletcherism

Over twenty years ago, at the age of
forty years, my hair was white; I
weighed two hundred and seventeen
pounds (about fifty pounds more than I
should for my height of five feet six
inches) ; every six months or so I had a
bad attack of "influenza"; I was har-
rowed by indigestion; I was afflicted
with "that tired feeling." I was an old
man at forty, on the way to a rapid de-
cline.

It was at about this time that I applied

[I]

ELETCHERISM : WHAT IT IS

for a life-insurance policy, and was
"turned down" by the examiners as a
''poor risk." This was the final straw.
I was not afraid to die; I had long ago
learned to look upon death with equa-
nimity. At the same time I had a keen
desire to live, and then and there made
a determination that I would find out
what was the matter, and, if I could do
so, save myself from my threatened de-
mise.

I realised that the first thing to do
was, if possible, to close up my business
arrangements so that I could devote my-
self to the study of how to keep on the
face of the earth for a few more years.
This I found it possible to do, and I re-
tired from active money-making.

The desire of my life was to live in
Japan, where I had resided for several
years, and to which country I was pas-
sionately devoted. My tastes were in
the direction of the fine arts. Japan had
been for years my Mecca — my house-
hold goods were already there, waiting

[2]

HOW I BECAME A FLETCHERITE

until I should take up my permanent
residence; and it required no small
amount of will-power to turn away from
the cherished hope of a lifetime, to con-
tinue travelling over the world, and
concentrate upon finding a way to keep
alive.

I turned my back on Japan, and be-
gan my quest for health. For a time, I
tried some of the most famous "cures"
in the world. Here and there were mo-
ments of hope, but in the end I was met
with disappointment.

THE TURNING POINT

It was partly accidental and partly
otherwise that I finally found a clue to
the solution of my health disabilities.
A faint suggestion of possibilities of ar-
rest of decline had dawned upon me in
the city of Galveston, Texas, some years
before, and had been strengthened by a
visit to an Epicurean philosopher who
had a snipe estate among the marsh-
lands of Southern Louisiana and a

[3]

fletcherism: what it is

truffle preserve near Pau, in France.
He was a disciple of Gladstone, and
faithfully followed the rules relative to
thorough chewing of food which the
Grand Old Man of England had formu-
lated for the guidance of his children.
My friend in Louisiana attributed his
robustness of health as much to this pro-
tection against overeating as to the ex-
ercise incident to his favourite sports.
But these impressions had not been
strong enough to have a lasting effect.

One day, however, I was called to Chi-
cago to attend to some unfinished busi-
ness affairs. They were difficult of
settlement, and I was compelled to
''mark time" in the Western city with
nothing especially to do. It was at this
time, in 1898, that I began to think seri-
ously of eating and its effect upon
health. I read a great many books, only
to find that no two authors agreed ; and
I argued from this fact that no one had
found the truth, or else there would be
some consensus of agreement. So I

[4]

HOW I BECAME A FLETCHERITE

stopped reading, and determined to con-
sult Mother Nature herself for direc-
tion.

HOW I HAD IGNORED MY RESPONSIBILITY

I began by trying to find out why
Nature required us to eat, and how and
when. The key to my search was a firm
belief in the good intentions of Nature
in the interest of our health and happi-
ness, and a belief also that anything less
than good health and high efficiency was
due to transgressions against certain
good and beneficent laws. Hence, it was
merely a question of search to find out
the nature of the transgression.

The fault was one of nutrition, evi-
dently.

I argued that if Nature had given us
personal responsibility it was not hidden
away in the dark folds and coils of the
alimentary canal where we could not
control it. The fault or faults must be
committed before the food was swal-
lowed. I felt instinctively that here

[5]

fletcherism: what it is

was the key to the whole situation.
The point, then, was to study the cavity
of the mouth ; and the first thought was :
"What happens there?" and "What is
present there?'' The answer was:
Taste, Smell (closely akin to taste and
hardly to be distinguished from it).
Feeling, Saliva, Mastication, Appetite,
Tongue, Teeth, etc.

I first took up the careful study of
Taste, necessitating keeping food in the
mouth as long as possible, to learn its
course and development; and, as I tried
it myself, wonders of new and pleasant
sensations were revealed. New delights
of taste were discovered. Appetite
assumed new leanings. Then came
the vital discovery, which is this:
I found that each of us has what I call
a food-filter : a discriminating muscular
gate located at the back of the mouth
where the throat is shut off from the
mouth during the process of mastica-
tion. Just where the tongue drops over
backward toward its so-called roots
[6]

HOW I BECAME A FLETCHERITE

there are usually five (sometimes seven,
we are told) little teat-like projections
placed in the shape of a horseshoe, each
of them having a trough around it, and
in these troughs, or depressions, termi-
nate a great number of taste-buds, or
ends of gustatory nerves. Just at this
point the roof of the mouth, or the "hard
palate,'' ends; and the "soft palate,"
with the uvula at the end of it, drops
down behind the heavy part of the
tongue.

During the natural act of chewing the
lips are closed, and there is also a com-
plete closure at the back part of the
mouth by the pressing of the tongue
against the roof of the mouth. During
mastication, then, the mouth is an air-
tight pouch.

After which brief description, please
note, the next time you take food,

WHAT HAPPENS DURING MASTICATION

Hold the face down, so that the
tongue hangs perpendicularly in the

[7]

fletcherism: what it is

mouth. This is for two reasons: one,
because it will show how food, when
properly mixed with saliva, will be lifted
up in the hollow part in the middle of
the tongue, against the direct force of
gravity, and will collect at the place
where the mouth is shut off at the back,
the food-gate.

It is a real gate ; and while the food is
being masticated, so that it may be
mixed with saliva and chemically trans-
formed from its crude condition into the
chemical form that makes it possible of
digestion and absorption, this gate will
remain tightly shut, and the throat will
be entirely cut off from the mouth.

But as the food becomes creamy, so to
speak, through being mixed with saliva,
or emulsified, or alkalised, or neutral-
ised, or dextrinised, or modified in what-
ever form Nature requires, the creamy
substance will be drawn up the central
conduit of the tongue until it reaches
the food-gate.

If it is found by the taste-buds there
[8]

HOW I BECAME A FLETCHERITE

located around the "circumvalate pap-
illae" (the teat-like projections on the
tongue which I mentioned above) to be
properly prepared for acceptance and
further digestion, the food-gate will
open, and the food thus ready for ac-
ceptance into the body will be sucked
back and swallowed unconsciously —
that is, without conscious effort.

I now started to experiment on my-
self. I chewed my food carefully until
I extracted all taste from it there was
in it, and until it slipped unconsciously
down my throat. When the appetite
ceased, and I was thereby told that I
had had enough, I stopped; and I had
no desire to eat any more until a real
appetite commanded me again. Then
I again chewed carefully — eating al-
ways whatever the appetite craved.

THE FIVE PRINCIPLES OF FLETCHERISM

I have now found out five things ; all
that there is to my discovery relative to
optimum nutrition; and to the funda-

• [9]

fletcherism: what it is

mental requisite of what is called Fletch-
erism.

First: Wait for a true, earned appe-
tite.

Second: Select from the food avail-
able that which appeals most to appe-
tite, and in the order called for by
appetite.

Third: Get all the good taste there
is in food out of it in the mouth, and
swallow only when it practically "swal-
lows itself.''

Fourth: Enjoy the good taste for all
it is worth, and do not allow any de-
pressing or diverting thought to intrude
upon the ceremony.

Fifth: Wait ; take and enjoy as much
as possible what appetite approves;
Nature will do the rest.

For five months I went on patiently
observing, and I found out positively
in that time that I had worked out my
own salvation. I had lost upwards of
sixty pounds of fat: I was feeling bet-
ter in all ways than I had for twenty

[lO]

HOW I BECAME A FLETCHERITE

years. My head was clear, my body
felt springy, I enjoyed walking, I had
not had a single cold for five months,
*'that tired feeling" was gone! But
my skin had not yet shrunk back to fit
my reduced proportions, and when I
told friends whom I met that I felt well
and a new man, their retort was that I
certainly "did not look it !" *

The more I tried to convince others,
the more fully I realised from talking
to friends how futile and well-nigh hope-
less was the attempt to get credence and
sympathy for my beliefs, scientifically
well founded as I felt they were. For
years it proved so; and I faced the fact
that to pursue the campaign for recog-
nition meant spending much money,
putting aside opportunities to make
profit in other and more agreeable di-
rections, and no end of ridicule. Some-

* Note : — Some of these same friends, fifteen
years later, when I was sixty-four years of age, as
positively declared: "You never looked so well:
"Fletcherizing has certainly done well for Fletcher!"

[II]

fletcherism: what it is

times, during the daytime, when I was
"sizing up" the situation in my mind,
treating it with calm business judg-
ment, it seemed nothing less than in-
sane to waste any more time or money
in trying to prove my contentions.

Fully three years passed before I re-
ceived encouragement from any source
of recognised authority. I went first
to Professor Atwater,* who received
me most politely, but when I told him
my story he threw cold water on my
enthusiasm. In our correspondence
afterwards he was most cordial but in
no way encouraging.

The frost became more and more re-
pellent and benumbing.

Still I persisted. At last I got hold
of my first convert: a medical man, ill
and discouraged; a member of a family
long distinguished in the medical pro-

* Professor W. A. Atwater, of Connecticut, U.S.A.,
was, in his time, a respected authority in the field
of human nutrition, and, as such, was selected by
the editors of the EncyclopcBdia Britannica to write
the chapters on Nutrition for the Encyclopcedia.
[12]

HOW I BECAME A FLETCHERITE

fession. He was Doctor Van Someren,
of Venice, Italy, where I had made my
home and where I Hved for some years.
J. induced him to organise an experi-
ment with me. We enHsted a squad of
men and induced them to take food ac-
cording to my ideas. We also were
fortunate enough to secure the co-oper-
ation of Professor Leonardi, of Venice.
In less than three weeks the sick phy-
sician found himself relieved of his
acute ailments, and it would have taken
several teams of horses to hold him
back from preaching his discovery.*
A little later, we transferred the field of
experiment to the Austrian Tyrol, and
tested our endurance qualities, only to
find a capacity for work that was not
before considered possible. Then Doc-
tor Van Someren wrote his paper for
the British Medical Association, which
excited the interest of Professor Sir

* Dr. Van Someren's testimony is given as an Ap-
pendix to this volume; taken from The A.B. — Z. of
Our Own Nutrition,

[13]

fletcherism: what it is

Michael Foster, of the University of
Cambridge, England, and the first wave
of scientific attention was set in mo-
tion.

[14]

CHAPTER II

SCIENTIFIC TESTS

First Critical Examination at Cambridge University,
England — My Endurance Test at Yale University
in America

One result of this powerful interest
was a test of our theories made at Cam-
bridge University, England, organised
by Sir Michael Foster, who was then
Professor of Physiology at the Univer-
sity, and conducted by Professor Fran-
cis Gowland Hopkins. The test was
successful, proving our most optimistic
claims, and the report of it was pub-
lished.

The scientific world now began to
turn its attention to my discoveries.
Doctor Henry Pickering Bowditch, of
Harvard Medical School, the dean of
American physiologists, put the full

[15]

fletcherism: what it is

weight of his respected influence into
the work to secure for America the
honour of completing the investigation ;
but it was not until the experiments at
Yale University, in New Haven, that
the first wide publicity was accorded.
The story of this and subsequent experi-
ments and their results is this: Pro-
fessor Russell H. Chittenden was at the
time President of the American Physio-
logical Association, Director of the
Sheffield Scientific School of Yale Uni-
versity, and the recognised leading
physiological chemist of America. He
invited me to the annual meeting of the
Physiological Association at Washing-
ton, where I described the results in
economy and efficiency, and especially
in getting rid of fatigue of brain and
muscle, obtained up to that time. But
evidently to little purpose, as Professor
Chittenden revealed to me at the close
of the meeting. He said, in effect:

"Fletcher, all the men you have met
at our meeting like you immensely, per-
[i6]

The Author Testing his Endurance by means of the Kellogg

Mercurial Dynamometer. Dr. Anderson, Director of the Yale

Gymnasium, in the background.

SCIENTIFIC TESTS

sonally; but no one takes much stock in
your claims, even with the endorsement
of the Cambridge men; the test there
was insufficient to be conclusive. If,
however, you will come to New Haven
and let us put you through an exami-
nation, our report will be accepted here.
You will be either justified or disillu-
sioned; and — I want to be frank with
you — I think you will be disillusioned."

MY EXAMINATION

by Dr. Chittenden showed a daily aver-
age of 44.9 grams of proteid, 38.0
grams of fat, and 253 grams of carbo-
hydrates, with a total average calory
value of 1,606 (compare this with the
Voit Diet Standard, page 109), and
careful and thorough tests made at
the Yale Gymnasium proved that, in
spite of this relatively low ration, I was
in prime physical condition.

Previously, as before stated, in the
autumn of 1901, Dr. Van Someren had
accompanied me to Cambridge for the

[17]

fletcherism: what it is

purpose of having our claims closely in-
vestigated, with the assistance of physi-
ological experts. The Cambridge and
the Venice findings were fully confirmed
at New Haven, and striking physical
evidence was added by Doctor William
Gilbert Anderson's examinations of
me in the Yale Gymnasium. This lat-
ter test, described on page 24, was more
practically important as an eye-opener
to both doctors and laymen than were
the laboratory reports. I personally
showed endurance and strength in spe-
cial tests superior to the foremost
among the College athletes. This was
without training and with comparatively
small muscle; the superiority of the
muscle lying in the quality and not in
the amount of it.

Professor Chittenden then became in-
tensely interested in the matter, as did
also Professor Mendel; and the former
suggested organising an experiment on
a sufficiently large scale to prove uni-
versality of application or the reverse.

[18]

SCIENTIFIC TESTS

He volunteered his services and the use
of his laboratory facilities.

At this time, too, I became acquainted
with General Leonard Wood * and Sur-
geon-General O'Reilly, of the United
States Army. I found both open to my
evidence; and, in the case of General
Wood, I learned that it was confirmed
by his own experience while chas-
ing Indians in the Western wilds.
Through them President Roosevelt and
Secretary Root became interested, and
carte blanche was given General
O'Reilly to use the War Department fa-
cilities, including the soldiers of the
Hospital Corps, for assistance in the
proposed experiment, t

One of the revelations of our experi-
ments worthy of mention here was that

* Now Chief of Staff.

tThe full report of this famous experiment may
be found in Professor Chittenden's book Physiolo-
gical Economy in Nutrition; but such small mention
of indebtedness to Fletcherism was made, that Pro-
fessor Irving Fisher, in the interest of practical

[19]

fletcherism: what it is

occasional long abstinence from food,
say two or three weeks, with water
freely available, is comparatively harm-
less, if "Fletcherizing" is carefully
practised when food is again given to
the body. Nature prescribes accurately
what is to be eaten (often the most un-
expected sort of food) ; and if the food
selected by appetite is carefully masti-
cated, sipped, or whatever other treat-
ment is necessary to get the good taste
out of it, and the mental state at the
same time is clear of fear-thought or
worry of any kind, the just amount that
the body can use at the moment is pre-
scribed by appetite, and the restoration
to normal weight is accomplished with

Political Economy, organised a supplemental experi-
ment, more normal than the first, to test the economic
effects of Fletcherism, pure and simple.

A brief account of this investigation is given on
page 98.

Professor Chittenden made amends, later on, by-
composing a physiological prose poem on the bene-
fits and delights resulting from careful chewing and
tasting of nutriment, which I quote in full in Chap-
ter VII.

[20]

SCIENTIFIC TESTS

epicurean delight, well worth a spell of
deprivation.

THE IRVING FISHER EXPERIMENTS

The tests of endurance, which were
conducted by Professor Irving Fisher,
of Yale, now President of the Commit-
tee of One Hundred on National Health
of the American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science, and with the co-
operation of the famous athletic coach,
Alonzo B. Stagg, formerly of Yale, but
now of the University of Chicago — on
College athletes, students of sedentary
habits, and on members of the staff of
the Battle Creek Sanatorium — are of
prodigious importance in their relation
to the possibilities of human endurance
through simple Fletcherizing.

The reports include a test in what is
termed "deep-knee bending," or squat-
ting on the heels and then lifting the
body to full height as many times as
possible. John H. Granger, of the Bat-
tle Creek Sanatorium staff, did this feat

[21]

fletcherism: what it is

5,002 times consecutively in two hours
and nineteen minutes and could have
continued. He then ran down a flight
of steps to the swimming-pool, plunged
in and had a swim, slept sweetly and
soundly for the usual time, and showed
no signs of soreness or other disability
afterwards.

Doctor Wagner gave his strenuous
contribution to our knowledge of possi-
bilities of endurance by holding his arms
out horizontally for 200 minutes with-
out rest — three hours and twenty min-
utes. At the end of that time he showed
no signs of fatigue, and stopped only
because of the weariness shown by those
who were watching and counting the
minutes. These statements seem like
exaggerations, but they are not.

Both of these tests can be tried by
any one in the privacy of his or her own
bedroom.

Doctor Anderson, Director of the
Yale Gymnasium, taking advantage of
the cue offered by the Yale experiments,

[22]

SCIENTIFIC TESTS

which he superintended, practised
Fletcherizing in all its branches. At
the end of six years he put the muscles
thus purified to the test, with the result
that he added fifteen pounds of pure
muscle to a frame that never carried
more than 135 pounds before in the half
century of its existence, and demon-
strated that the same progressive recu-
peration that I have enjoyed is open and
available to others who have passed
middle life.

Mr. Stapleton, one of Professor Chit-
tenden's volunteers, grasped the same
valuable cue while serving as one of
the heavy-weight test-subjects in the
Yale experiments. He reduced his
waist measurement to thirty inches and
a half, increased his chest measurement
to forty-four inches; and has refined
his physique until his ribs show clearly
through his flesh, while his muscles
mount tall and strong where muscle is
needed in the economy of efficiency.
In the meantime, without training other

[23]

fletcherism: what it is

than that connected with his teaching,
he increased the total of his strength
and endurance more than one hundred
per cent.; and reduced his amount of
food by nearly, if not quite, half — as
have also Doctor Anderson and myself.

MY ENDURANCE TEST AT YALE

These are merely typical cases of dis-
tinguished and measured improvement.

How the movement went on from
step to step others have told, and I need
not follow it further here.

Two years after I began my experi-
ments my strength and endurance had
increased beyond my wildest expec-
tation. On my fiftieth birthday I rode
nearly two hundred miles on my bicycle
over French roads, and came home
feeling fine. Was I stiff the next day?
Not at all, and I rode fifty miles the
next morning before breakfast in order
to test the effect of my severe stunt.*

* Detailed account of this test is given in The
New Glutton or Epicure, New York: Frederick A.
Stokes Company.

[24]

SCIENTIFIC TESTS

When I was fifty-eight years of age,
at the Yale University Gymnasium, un-
der the observation of Dr. Anderson.
I Hfted three hundred pounds dead
weight three hundred and fifty times
with the muscles of my right leg below
the knee. The record of the best athlete
then was one hundred and seventy-five
lifts, so I doubled the world's record of
that style of tests of endurance.

The story of this test at Yale, when
I doubled the ''record'' about which so
much has been written, is this: Pro-
fessor Irving Fisher, of Yale, had de-
vised a new form of endurance-testing
machine intended to be used upon the
muscles most commonly in use by all
persons. Obviously these are the mus-
cles used in walking. Quite a large
number of tests had been measured by
the Fisher machine, but it was still be-
ing studied with a view to possible sim-
plification.

I was asked to try it and to suggest
any changes that might improve it. I

[25]

fletcherism: what it is

did so, and handled the weight with
such seeming ease that Dr. Anderson
asked me whether I would not make a
thorough test of my endurance. This
I was glad to do.

The Professor Irving Fisher En-
durance Testing Machine is weighted
to 75 per cent, of the lifting capacity of
the subject, . ascertained by means of
the Kellogg Mercurial Dynamometer.
The lifting is timed to the beats of a
metronome.

When I began, Dr. Anderson cau-
tioned me against attempting too much.
I asked him what he considered ''too
much," and he replied : "For a man of
your age, not in training, I should not
recommend trying more than fifty
lifts." So I began the test, lifting the
weight to the beat of the metronome at
the rate of about one in two seconds^
and had soon reached the fifty mark.
"Be careful," repeated Dr. Anderson,
"you may not feel that you are over-

[26]

SCIENTIFIC TESTS

doing now, but afterwards you may re-
gret it."

But I felt no strain and went on.

When seventy-five had been ex-
ceeded, Dr. Anderson called Dr. Born
from his desk to take charge of the
counting and watching to see that the
lifts were fully completed, and ran out
into the gymnasium to call the masters
of boxing, wrestling, fencing, etc., to
witness the test. When they had gath-
ered about the machine, Dr. Anderson
said to them, "It looks as if we were
going to see a record-breaking." I
then asked, "What are the records?"
Dr. Anderson replied, "One hundred
and seventy-five lifts is the record ; only
two men have exceeded one hundred;
the lowest was thirty-three, and the
average so far is eighty-four."

In the meantime I had reached one
hundred and fifty lifts, and the interest
was centered on the question as to
whether I should reach the high record,
one hundred and seventy-five.

[27]

fletcherism: what it is

When one hundred and seventy-five
had been reached, Dr. Anderson
stepped forward to catch me in case the
leg in use in the test should not be able
to support me when I stopped and at-
tempted to stand up. But I did not
stop lifting the three-hundred-pound
weight. I kept right on, and as I pro-
gressed to two hundred, two hundred
and fifty, three hundred, and finally to
double the record, three hundred and
fifty lifts, the interest increased pro-
gressively.

After adding a few to the three hun-
dred and fifty I stopped, not because I
was suffering from fatigue, but be-
cause the pounding of the iron collar on
the muscles above my knee had made
the place so pummelled very sore, as if
hit a great number of times with a
heavy sledge-hammer, I had doubled
the record, and that seemed sufficient
for a starter in the competition.

As I stood up. Dr. Anderson reached

[28]

The Author undergoing a Test at Yale when he made a
World's Record on the Irving Fisher Endurance Testing

Machine.

SCIENTIFIC TESTS

Up his arms to support me. But I
needed no support. The leg that had
been in use feh a trifle lighter, but in
no sense weak or tired.

Then I was examined for heart-ac-
tion, steadiness of nerve, muscle, etc.,
and was found to be all right, with no
evidence of strain. A glass brimming
full of water was placed first in one
hand and then in the other, and was
held out at arm's length without spill-
ing any of the water.

Next morning I was examined for
evidence of soreness, but none was
present. There was the normal elas-
ticity and tone of muscle.

Later in that same year, at the Inter-
national Young Men's Christian Asso-
ciation Training School at Springfield,
Massachusetts, I lifted seven hundred
and seventy pounds with the muscles of
the back and legs — a feat that weight-
lifting athletes find hard to perform.
And I did these stunts eating two meals

[29]

fletcherism: what it is

a day, one at noon and the other at six
o'clock, at an average cost of eleven
cents a day.

Still another examination at the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania resulted in my
breaking the College record of lifting
power with the back muscles. I do not
cite these instances as feats of extra-
ordinary prowess, but just to show the
difference in my condition then and
twenty years before. All this I have
done simply by keeping my body free
of excess of food and the poisons that
come from the putrefaction of the food
that the organism does not want and
cannot take care of.

As to myself, I am now past sixty-
four. I weigh one hundred and
seventy pounds, which is a good weight
for my height. During the many years
of experiment I have ranged between
two hundred and seventeen and one
hundred and thirty pounds, but have
"settled down" to my present quite con-
venient figure. I feel perfectly well; I

[30]

SCIENTIFIC TESTS

can do as much work as can a man of
forty — more than can the average man
of forty, I believe. I rarely have a
cold, and although I am always careless
in this regard, my work is never de-
layed. I do not know what it is to have
*'that tired feeling," except as ex-
pressed by sleepiness. When I get into
bed I scarce ever remember my head
striking the pillow, and after four and
one-half hours I awake from a dream-
less slumber with a happy waking
thought in process of formation.

I usually find it agreeable to court
supplemental naps, to be followed by
more pleasant waking thoughts: but
these are pure luxury. I can do with
five hours sleep if need be.

[31]

CHAPTER III

WHAT I AM ASKED ABOUT
FLETCHERISM

Let Nature Choose the Meals — How Many Meals a
Day ? — Housewives — Fletcherism — The Financial
Economy of Fletcherism — Business People and
Fletcherism — The True Epicure

What do I eatf

When do I eat?

How much do I eatf

My answer to all these questions is
very simple. I eat anything that my
appetite calls for; I eat it only when it
does call for it; and I eat until my ap-
petite is satisfied and cries "Enough!"

With my New England food prefer-
ences, my range of selection circulates
among a very simple and inexpensive
variety, namely, potatoes, corn-bread,
beans, occasionally eggs, milk, cream,
toast-and-butter, etc. ; and combinations
of these, such as hashed-browned pota-

[32]

WHAT I AM ASKED

toes, potatoes in cream, potatoes au
gratin, baked potatoes, potato pats, fish-
balls — mainly composed of potato; oc-
casionally tomato stewed with plenty of
powdered sugar; oyster stew with the
flavour of celery; escalloped oysters,
etc. The taste for fruits is always suit-
able to the season, and is intermittent,
strong leanings towards some partic-
ular fruit persisting for a time and then
waning to give place to some other pref-
erence.

But with all my fifteen or twenty
years of unremitting study of the sub-
ject, I cannot now tell what my body is
going to want to-morrow. But Na-
ture knows, and she alone knows.

LET NATURE CHOOSE THE MEAL

Once in Venice a group of experi-
menters, of which I was one, subsisted
on milk alone. During seventeen days
nothing but milk, always from the same
cow, and fresh from the milking,
passed my lips in the way of food or

[33]

fletcherism: what it is

drink. I sipped the milk, and tasted
it for all the taste there was in it, and I
learned to be so fond of it that it was
with some difficulty that I went back to
a varied diet when the experiment
called for a change. Good, fresh milk
is an exception to Nature's dislike for
monotony in food. Milk is the one
perfectly-balanced food material; and
while it may not be always the best food
for grown persons, it is the most ac-
ceptable as a monotonous diet, and al-
ways is good, sufficient and safe nutri-
ment, if sipped, tasted, and naturally
swallowed.

I have forgotten just what the exact
quantity was that I consumed daily dur-
ing those seventeen days — I believe it
was about two quarts. I get away as
far as possible from quantitative
amounts, which may influence other
persons. The appetite is the only true
guide to bodily need; and if milk is
tasted and swallowed only by involun-
tary compulsion as required by right

[34]

WHAT I AM ASKED

feeding, the appetite will gauge the
bodily need exactly, and cut off short
when enough for the moment has been
taken.

So I say to all who ask me these ques-
tions as applied to themselves: I cannot
advise you appropriately what to eat,
when to eat, nor how much to eat;
neither can anybody else. Trust to
Nature absolutely, and accept her guid-
ance.

If she calls for pie, eat pie. If she
calls for it at midnight eat it then, but
eat it right. Understand the food
filter at the back of the mouth as I have
described it in a previous article, and
use it in connection with the pie. If it
is used properly, and all the taste is ex-
tracted from the pie, and it is swallowed
only in response to the natural opening
of the gate, and if the ingredients of
the pie that are not swallowed naturally
are removed from the mouth, nothing
will happen to disturb profound sleep.

Few persons will crave mince pie or

[35]

fletcherism: what it is

Welsh rarebit late at night. The
worker on a morning paper may do so,
and often does. He has earned his
appetite, and sometimes it is so robust
as to call for mince pie or Welsh rare-
bit; but if these are eaten properly they
will then be utilised by the body, eagerly
and easily.

I dwell purposely upon this extrava-
gance of eating. It is to accentuate
the fact that we want to get as far away
as possible, when cultivating vital econ-
omies, from the idea of extraneous ad-
vice in the matter of food.

The ordinary person will probably
find his appetite leaning towards the
simplest of foods, and away from fre-
quency of indulgence. If the break-
fast is postponed until a real, earned
appetite has been secured, the mid-day
or later breakfast (remember always
that breakfast means the first meal of
the day, no matter when taken) will be
so enjoyable a meal, and the appetite
will be so entirely satisfied that there

[36]

WHAT I AM ASKED

will be no more demand for food until
evening, and possibly not even then.

HOW MANY MEALS A DAY?

I am often asked if it is true that I
eat only two meals a day; that I never
eat breakfast, and why I have dropped
that meal.

I have two meals a day more habit-
ually than any other number, but not
with any prescribed regularity, for the
reason that my activities are most ir-
regular at times, and my appetite ac-
commodates itself to my needs.

When I am doing work under the
most favourable of conditions, one
meal a day is the rhythm best appreci-
ated by my body. But the question of
"How many meals a day?" is tanta-
mount to the inquiry as to the amount
of sleep needed : it is a matter of satis-
faction of the natural requirements.
The harder one works, the faster one
runs, etc., the more air he needs. The
same applies to the need for food ac-

[37]

fletcherism: what it is

cording to the amount of heat elimi-
nated, and the repair material consumed.
The really hardest work that anybody
does is done within the body. Mus-
cular effort in normal conditions is not
so waste-provoking and exacting as
getting rid of excess of food and the
counteraction of worry or anger.
Likewise, idleness begets uneasiness,
uneasiness begets desire for something
(nobody knows just what), and grop-
ing around for '*Don't know what"
causes the temptation to eat and drink
something which the body does not
need; and then the really hard work of
the body begins in the attempt of Na-
ture to get rid of the excess. Excess of
water can be thrown off in perspiration
with comparative ease, but with excess
of food it is different. The kidneys,
bacteria and fuel furnaces of the body
are all over-worked to get rid of it.

When I am so busy that I have only
time to replenish the real exhausted
need of the body, say half an hour at

[38]

WHAT I AM ASKED

most, I find one meal a day all that my
appetite demands of me. This is taken
after I have done my day's work of,
say, eight hours of writing, or twelve
or thirteen hours of bicycle riding or
mountain climbing, and then I do not
have appetite for more until the next
day, after the work is done.

When I mention two meals as being
the more habitual, it is because I am not
fully, constructively active all the time
now, although I am usually "snowed
under" with things that I might do to
advantage; and hence I conform to the
social custom and sit down to table
some time in the evening to be social.

The reason I have dropped the habit-
hunger morning meal is because I find
that it is unnatural in my case. My ex-
perience showed me that omission of
the early morning meal led to desire for
a lighter but more satisfactory mid-day
meal, and took away the craving for the
evening supper. I first came to this
realisation during excessive hot

[39]

fletcherism: what it is

weather and monotonously trying en-
vironment. The only time I could
write comfortably was before sun-up in
the morning. Absorbed in my writing
I did not realise the growing heat of
the day until I actually began to rain
perspiration, by which time it was
nearly noon. Then came the mid-day
meal of breakfast selection with salad
and fruit preponderating. The best of
feelings followed, the waist-line
shrank, and one meal satisfied.

In order to try the urgency of any
habit appetite — the early morning meal,
for instance — take a drink of water in-
stead, and note if that does not suffice
as well as food to allay the craving for
"something." A cup of hot water,
with sugar and milk to suit the taste,
is amply sufficient. Water will not sat-
isfy a real, earned appetite; but it often
will effectually allay a purely habit-
hunger such as that for early break-
fast.

[40]

WHAT I AM ASKED

HOUSEWIVES AND FLETCHERISM

A great many women ask: "But how
is it possible to follow such a haphazard
way of eating in a home without upset-
ting the whole routine of the household,
disturbing the work of the servants?
You can't just have your family eating
whenever they like."

My answer is this: The possible
disturbance to domestic regularity and
convenience, because of the difficulty of
supplying different members of the
family only when appetite in each case
is "just good and ready," is purely im-
aginary. Persons of regular occupa-
tions will accommodate themselves to
the ordinary rhythm of meal schedule
easily and naturally, with the difference
that they may occasionally skip a meal
or two when the ordinary activity has
been lessened.

The general experience has been,
that concentration on one particular

[41]

fletcherism: what it is

meal, either at noon or in the evening,
will suit everybody, and other feedings
will be "snoopings" from the larder, or
taken at a restaurant in those instances
where one's occupation is remote from
home. The "Fletcherite" at business
frequently follows the method of having
nuts or plain biscuits in his desk in case
he feels like taking them ; and the busi-
ness woman would do well to profit by
his example.

The adoption of Fletcheristic sim-
plicity leads to the solving of the eternal
household problem, and under its in-
fluence it is possible for woman's work
to be done sooner, giving physical relief
and more time for healthful recreation.

Diminution of the demand for meat-
foods has much to do with both the ease
of house-work, and the modification of
cost. But this is not the most impor-
tant saving. The saving of liability to
intestinal toxication (poisoning) is the
great economy of the method.

[42]

WHAT I AM ASKED

THE FINANCIAL ECONOMY OF FLETCHER-
ISM

It has been stated by writers who
have correctly reported resuhs that
more than two hundred thousand fam-
ilies in America live according to
Fletcherism and save as much as a dol-
lar a day on their living expenses.
This has led many to ask: "How are
one's living expenses reduced by your
principles ?''

The estimate, arrived at a few years
ago, that some two hundred thousand
families in America were saving an
average of a dollar a day through
Fletcherizing, was made, I believe, by
Doctor Kellog, of Battle Creek, Mich-
igan. Through the thousands of pa-
tients who pass under his observation,
and through a comprehensive touch
with the sale of different kinds of food
throughout the country, Doctor Kellog
has his finger on the pulse of the nation

[43]

fletcherism: what it is

in relation to its dietetic circulation.
Fletcherism first affected families of
sumptuous tastes, and the economy of
it easily effected a saving of an average
of a dollar a day, largely in the diminu-
tion of meat requirements and complex
dishes.

The spread of the movement has
now begun to encompass families of
lesser luxury of habits; and here it is
found that an average saving of ten
cents a day for each person is easily
accomplished. In the Christian En-
deavour Society alone, the leaders of
the movement, as the result of their
own practical experience, hoped to
effect a saving of hundreds of thou-
sands of dollars a day through the
spread of this economic nutritive teach-
ing. This was likewise the aspiration
of the Roman Catholic benevolent
organisations. A circular letter
signed by the Reverend Father Hig-
gins, of Germantown, Pennsylvania,
which was distributed widely, declared

[44]

WHAT I AM ASKED

that, in addition to the food economy
sought to be obtained, a condition
which makes for poverty — that is, in-
temperance — was overcome by Fletch-
erism.

Father Higgins declared that ''No
Fletcherite can he intemperate in the
use of alcoholic stimulants,'* and he was
right in his assertion.

BUSINESS PEOPLE AND FLETCHERISM

What would be the best way for
business people to adopt Fletcherism?
is often asked. The case is frequently
cited to me of a young man or woman
who isn't hungry for breakfast at seven
o'clock, does not eat at that time be-
cause the appetite doesn't demand it;
and then gets ravenously hungry at
eleven o'clock. It may be impossible to
get any food until one-thirty — by
which time the feeling comes that one
has "waited too long," and a headache
and no desire for food are the results.
Or, the case of working-girls who live

[45]

fletcherism: what it is

in boarding-houses, eat no breakfast,
and at noon cannot afford the whole-
some and hearty food Nature would
then crave. Later, at dinner, they
have to eat what is put before them,
whether they want it or not, or else go
without. Will a hearty luncheon,
rightly eaten, interfere with a good
afternoon's work? I am reminded
also that leisure, money, and easily-ac-
cessible cafes are not always available
for business women.

My answer to such questions is: —
Any change of habit is apt to excite a
protest on behalf of the body, especially
when the body is not properly nour-
ished, and is in a state of more or less
disease. When the habit-hunger comes
on a few sips of water will quiet the dis-
comfort for the time being and, very
likely, until it is convenient to take food
comfortably and with the calm and rel-
ish necessary to good digestion. Head-
ache, faintness, "all-goneness" and like
discomforts, are symptoms, not of hun-

[46]

WHAT I AM ASKED

ger, but of the reverse — that is, fer-
mentation of undigested excess of food
which the body cannot use.

A person, thus troubled, should
brave discomfort for a week, and even
go without food entirely for a few
meals, in order to give the body a
chance to "clean house'': then the real
sensation of hunger will be expressed
by "watering of the mouth" and a keen
desire for some simple food such as
bread and butter, or dry bread alone.
But this healthy appetite will "keep"
and accumlate until it is convenient to
take food.

THE TRUE EPICURE

I am, personally, a hearty man in full
activity, both mental and physical. I
can work six hours and then satisfy the
keenest of appetites on a meal of wheat
griddle-cakes with maple syrup and a
glass or two of milk. A young work-
ing woman should be able to do the
same. If I eat such a meal with

[47]

fletcherism: what it is

"gusto," deliberation (so as to enjoy
the maximum of taste), taking not
more than fifteen minutes over it, I can
then go to work, or play, or to moun-
tain cHmbing, or to riding a bicycle,
and keep it up until I am sleepy, with
no sense of repletion or discomfort.

"Money, leisure and easily-acces-
sible cafes" are the menace of right
nutrition, unless one is proof against
temptation to kill time in this danger-
ous manner.

Steady work to earn a true appetite,
small means to spend on food, the neces-
sity of going to seek it, with the ap-
preciation which comes from rarity, are
the very best safeguards to right nutri-
tion,

I am an epicure. Yet I have never
seen a boarding-house, nor a resturant,
nor a camp where I could not find some-
thing to satisfy a true (earned) ap-
petite. During more than a year in
the Far East — Ceylon, Java, the Philip-
pines, China, Burma India, Kashmir —

[48]

WHAT I AM ASKED

and at many steamer and railway lunch
tables, I always found something good
to satisfy a keen appetite. If you are
all right inside, and will only conquer
your habit-hungers, I believe you can
live sumptuously, anywhere, on less
than two shillings a day. I can, and
often do ; and do it, too, at one hundred
and seventy pounds weight and
'^awfully busy" all the time. It may be
difficult, and perhaps painful, at first,
to get the best of bad habit-cravings,
but it is worth while. A week should
accomplish the reformation.

A number of men ask me : "Do you
honestly believe that in your theories
lies the secret of long life?" I do, and
I may give one example of a "lived
model" of longevity as the result of
Fletcherism in all its ramifications of
temperance of eating, careful masti-
cation, radiant optimism, practical altru-
ism, superabundant activity, etc. The
Honourable Albert Gallatin Dow, of
Randolph, New York, passed away in

[49]

fletcherism: what it is

May, 1908, lacking less than three
months of a hundred years of age. Up
to the last moment of his century of life
there was no encroachment of senility,
and he fell, ripe fruit, into the lap of
Mother Nature, without a blemish of
decay. Shortly before he passed away,
Mr. Dow invited me to see him, and
told me that he had received a shock
of warning early in life as I had done
late in life, and had made the same dis-
covery that had reformed me. He be-
lieved that he owed his health and vig-
our to following the simple require-
ments of Nature, as I was teaching ; but
he had his career to make at the time,
and had not had the leisure and means
to preach dietetic righteousness as I
was doing. He wished me Godspeed
on my mission. All inquiry in all direc-
tions, wherever longevity has been ac-
complished, reveals the same simplicity
of habits of living, which are the nat-
ural points of Fletcherizing.

[so]

CHAPTER IV

RULES OF FLETCHERISM

Never Eat until Hungry — Mouth-Treatment of Solid
and Liquid Food — When to Stop Eating — Instruc-
tions to the Medical Department of the U. S. Army

To make my ideas a little clearer, I
will elaborate them a little more. Re-
member that the rules are exceedingly
simple. That, to my mind, is the worst
obstruction to the general adoption of
my system: it is so simple that many
find it difficult to comprehend. But
take these rules and you have the idea.

FIRST RULE

Don't take any food until you are
''good and hungry."

Some people will reply: "I am al-
ways hungry." Others will aver that
they "never know what it is to be hun-
gry." We may assume that both re-

[51]

fletcherism: what it is

plies are incorrect, because hunger
must be intermittent, and must some-
times be present, or life would be in-
tolerable through lack of satisfaction
and something to satisfy.

The question, ''What is hunger?'' is
a natural and legitimate one, for the
reason that there are true appetites and
false cravings. True hunger for food
is indicated by "watering of the mouth"
— not that watering of the mouth, or
profuse flow of saliva, through arti-
ficial excitement by some pungent stimu-
lant, such as sweets, or acids or spiced
things; but that which is excited on
thought of some of the simplest of
foods, such as bread and butter, or dry
bread alone.

"All-goneness" in the region of the
stomach, "faintness," or any of the dis-
comforts that are felt below the guil-
lotine Hne, are not signs of true hunger,
but symptoms of indigestion, or some
other form of disease. True hunger is

[52]

RULES OF FLETCHERISM

never a discomfort unless a growing
desire may be classed as a discomfort.
Accumulating appetite (true hunger)
is like the multiplication of uncut and
uncashed coupons on a railway bond
or on a Government bond. The feel-
ing of possession is a joy of itself; and
the ability to collect the proceeds when
needed and at leisure is comfortable
rather than uncomfortable. Under cir-
cumstances of intelligent nutrition, if
we pass one mealtime we wait patiently
for the next, with the knowledge that
we are accumulating appetite coupons.

SECOND RULE

Have you yet learned what true hun-
ger is?

Don't go on unless you have done so.
Take a little more time; skip a meal or
two, and give Nature a chance to show
you what real appetite (true watering
of the mouth) is. Having learned to
recognise healthy hunger and appetite,

[53]

fletcherism: what it is

and to know what it is to have both of
them begging you for satisfaction, pro-
ceed with the second rule.

From the food available at the time
take that first which appeals most
strongly to the appetite. It may be a
sip of soup, or a bite of bread and butter,
or a nibble of cheese, or, perhaps a lump
of sugar. It may be a piece of meat,
though I doubt that a true appetite will
call for such at the beginning of a meal.
Never mind what it may be, give it a
trial. If it be something that should be
masticated in order to give the saliva a
chance to mix with it and chemically
transform it, chew it ''for all that it is
worth."

'Tor all that it is worth" means for
the extraction and enjoyment of all the
good taste there is in it.

If the food selected by the appetite
happens to be soup, or milk, or some
mushy substance, get all the good taste
out of it, doing all you can to accom-
pHsh this; for to get the taste out

[54]

RULES OF FLETCHERISM

of food is an assurance of digesting
it, and the pleasure it gives in the proc-
ess of Nature's way of getting you to
do the right thing in helping her to
nourish yourself properly. Sip, taste,
bite, press with the tongue against the
roof of the mouth, the food in the
mouth, not because of any suggestion
of mine, but in response to the natural
instinct to move it about and get out of
it all the taste there is in it.

THIRD RULE

The moment appetite begins to slack
up a bit, the moment saliva does not
flow so freely as at first, the moment
there is any degree of satisfaction of
the appetite, stop eating!

You will have a return of appetite;
you will have another chance to eat;
appetite is beginning to have "that tired
feeling" herself; be kind to her as she
has been kind to you. Give her a rest !
Give her a rest! Give yourself a rest!
Rest is the antidote of ''that tired feel-

[55]

fletcherism: what it is

ing"! Therefore rest the appetite be-
fore it gets tired. Stop eating before
you are overloaded.

Now, having learned how to do the
right thing in eating so as never more
to have "that tired feeling," don't be-
gin to overdo. Don't bend backward
too far. Don't ever overdo a good
thing.

Be temperate; be deliberate. Be
thoughtful ; be forethoughtful ; be fore-
thoughtful without being fearthought-
ful. Don't overdo chewing, for then
you take away much of the pleasure;
smother the psychic enjoyment of eat-
ing, and raise the very mischief
again.

Just be natural, and know that being
natural is being deliberate in enjoying
the thing you are doing, for that is
Nature's way.

To the above simple rules I will ap-
pend a few recommendations which oc-
curred to me and which I wrote while

[56]

RULES OF FLETCHERISM

in a respiration calorimeter, an experi-
ence which I will relate in a subsequent
chapter. This list of recommendations
has since been included in the Instruc-
tions to the Medical Department of the
United States Army, under the head-
ing:

Method of attaining Economic Assimi-
lation of Nutriment and Immunity
from Disease, Muscular Sore-
ness and Fatigue.

( 1 ) Feed only when a distinct appe-
tite has been earned.

(2) Masticate all solid food until it
is completely liquefied and excites in an
irresistible manner the swallowing re-
flex or swallowing impulse.

(3) Attention to the act and appreci-
ation of the taste are necessary, mean-
time, to excite the flow of gastric juice
into the stomach to meet the food — as
demonstrated by Pawlow.

(4) Strict attention to these two
particulars will fulfil the requirements

[57]

fletcherism: what it is

of Nature relative to the preparation of
the food for digestion and assimilation ;
and this being faithfully done, the auto-
matic processes of digestion and as-
similation will proceed most profitably,
and will result in discarding very little
digestion-ash (faeces) to encumber the
intestines, or to compel excessive draft
upon the body energy for excretion.

(5) The assurance of healthy econ-
omy is observed in the small amount of
excreta and its peculiar inoffensive
character, showing escape from putrid
bacterial decomposition such as brings
indol and skatol offensively into evi-
dence.

(6) When digestion and assimila-
tion has been normally economic, the
digestion-ash (faeces) may be formed
into little balls ranging in size from a
pea to a so-called Queen Olive, accord-
ing to the food taken, and should be
quite dry, having only the odour of
moist clay or of a hot biscuit. This in-
offensive character remains indefinitely

[58]

RULES OF FLETCHERISM

until the ash completely dries, or disin-
tegrates like rotten stone or wood.

(7) The weight of the digestive-ash
may range (moist) from 10 grams to
not more than 40-50 grams a day, ac-
cording to the food; the latter estimate
being based on a vegetarian diet, and
may not call for excretion for several
days; smallness indicating best con-
dition. Foods differ so materially that
the amount and character of the ex-
creta cannot be accurately specified.
Some foods and conditions demand two
evacuations daily. Thorough and
faithful Fletcherizing settles the ques-
tion satisfactorily.

(8) Fruits may hasten peristalsis*;
but not if they are treated in the mouth
as sapid liquids rather than as solids,
and are insalivated, sipped, tasted, into
absorption in the same way wine-tast-
ers test and take wine, and tea-tasters
test tea. The latter spit out the tea

* Forwarding muscular movement which advances
food along the whole extent of the alimentary canal.

[59]

fletcherism: what it is

after tasting, as, otherwise, it vitiates
their taste, and ruins them for their dis-
criminating profession.

(9) Milk, soups, wines, beer, and all
sapid liquids or semi-solids should be
treated in this manner for the best as-
similation and digestion as well as for
the best gustatory results.

(10) This would seem to entail a
great deal of care and bother, and lead
to a waste of time.

(11) Such, however, is not the case.
To give attention in the beginning does
require strict attention and persistent
care to overcome life-long habits of
nervous haste; but if the attack is ear-
nest, habits of careful mouth treatment
and appetite discrimination soon be-
come fixed, and cause deliberation in
taking food unconsciously to the feeder.

(12) Food of a proteid value of 5-7
grams of nitrogen and 1,500-2,500
calories of fuel value,'*' paying strict at-

* The organic materials of human diet are usually
classified into three divisions: —

[60]

RULES OF FLETCHERISM

tention to the appetite for selection and
carefully treated in the mouth, has been
found to be the quantity best suited to
economy and efficiency of both mind
and body in sedentary pursuits and
ordinary business activity; and, also,
such habit of economy has given prac-
tical immunity from the common dis-
eases for a period extending over more

(i) The Proteids, or Albuminates — the character-
ising element occurring being nitrogen. The nitrog-
enous foods are: flesh (without the fat), eggs, milk,
cheese, legumes (peas, beans, lentils, etc.).

(2) The Fats, or Hydro-carbons. All animal and
vegetable fats and oil. Emulsions of mineral oils
have been shown to pass through the system un-
changed, and therefore cannot be regarded as food.

(3) The Carbo-hydrates (sugars and starches) :
bread, potatoes, and grain generally.

Protein is the tissue builder; heat and energy are
derived largely from the non-nitrogenous foods.

A Calorie (large) is the unit of heat required to
raise one kilogram of water to 1° C. The full value
of a food is ascertained by means of the calorimeter,
or apparatus used to determine the specific heat of
substances, or the amounts of heat evolved or ab-
sorbed in various physical and chemical changes.
Calorimeters take very diverse forms, varying from
quite simple vessels to highly complex apparatus,
according to the particular kind of determination to
be carried out in them.

[61]

fletcherism: what it is

than fifteen years, whereas the same
subject was formerly subject to period-
ical illness. Similar economy and im-
munity have shown themselves consist-
ently in the cases of many test subjects
covering periods of ten years, and
applies equally to both sexes, all ages,
and other idiosyncratic conditions.

(13) The time necessary for satis-
fying complete body needs and appetite
daily, when the habit of attention, ap-
preciation and deliberation have been
installed, is less than half an hour, no
matter how divided as to number of
rations. This necessitates industry of
mastication, to be sure, and will not
admit of waste of much time between
mouthfuls.

(14) Ten or fifteen minutes will
completely satisfy a ravenous appetite
if all conditions of ingestion and prep-
aration are favourable.

(15) Both quantitive and qualitive
supply of saliva are important factors;
but attention to these fundamental re-

[62]

RULES OF FLETCHERISM

quirements of right eating soon regu-
lates the supply of all of the digestive
juices, and in connection with the care
recommended above, ensures economy
of nutrition and, probably, immunity
from disease.

[63]

CHAPTER V

WHAT IS PROPER MASTICATION?

Not Excessive Chewing' — Gladstone's Advice — Salival
Action on Starch Foods

Notwithstanding the fact that
Fletcherizing stands for tasting as the
important thing to accomplish before
food is swallowed, and that biting, chew-
ing, or masticating is merely a means to
secure the end of thorough tasting, nine-
tenths of all who know anything about
the claims for Fletcherizing insist on
thinking that it merely means "excessive
mastication." The National Food Re-
form Association of England, in a bulle-
tin giving advice concerning the feed-
ing of school children, intended to be
posted in school-rooms and private din-
ing rooms, speak of Fletcherizing in its
ideal practice as "Excessive Mastica-
tion/'

[64]

WHAT IS PROPER MASTICATION?

This is just what Fletcherizing is not.
The very essence of the method of per-
forming the personal responsibihty is
avoiding excess of anything, excessive
or laboured chewing among the rest.

There is little if any harm in keeping
food in the mouth as long as possible,
and I believe that it is impossible to have
too much saliva mixed with it when it is
swallowed, because when it is properly
tasted and insalivated it is almost im-
possible to hold it back from the food
gate at the back of the mouth. There
is always suction there ready to draw
welcome nourishment in when it is
ready, and readiness touches a button,
electrically relieving the muscular
springs that close the gate tightly dur-
ing tasting, and, literally a "team of
horses could not hold it."

What the mystics of the stomach-dis-
eases profession called bradefagy, or,
in plain English, excessive chewing, can
only be performed with painful tedious-
ness. It makes work — hard work — of

[65]

fletcherism: what it is

the act, and that is just as much opposed
to Fletcherizing as it is to common
sense, horse sense, and all of the natural
senses.

Now just for one moment please pay
attention to one who is telling you some-
thing Mother Nature wants you to know
more than anything else in the whole
category of intelligence. Fletcherizing
is

NOT EXCESSIVE CHEWING

or tedious chewing, or long chewing.
The things that require to be chewed
long are not good food, and by that
sign you may find out their unprofit-
ableness better than in any other way.
Good taste from good food is not long
lasting. When the mouth is "water-
ing'' for the food in sight, or even in
thought of it, the coupons of taste they
carry with them are short, but represent
large figures of satisfaction and nour-
ishment.

[66]

WHAT IS PROPER MASTICATION?

MR. Gladstone's advice

Now listen to some figures regarding
the number of bites or chews that some
foods require under varying circum-
stances. Mr. Gladstone's advice to his
children which has become classic, viz. :
"Chew your food thirty-two times at
least, so as to give each of your thirty-
two teeth a chance at it," was a general
recommendation. Mr. Gladstone was
observed once when he was a guest at
"high table" at Trinity College, Cam-
bridge, and the average number of his
"bites" (masticatory movements) as far
as they could be counted, was about sev-
enty-five. That did not speak very well
for Trinity fare, unless Mr. Gladstone
happened to choose food that required
that amount of chewing.

Even if Mr. Gladstone did devote
seventy-five masticatory movements to
each morsel, as an average, such thor-
oughness would not have involved an

[67]

fletcherism: what it is

unusual length of time for a hearty meal.
If you will try the experiment when you
are "good and hungry/' having a "work-
ingman's appetite," and disposing of
good bread and butter the while, which
should have nearly, or quite, seventy
bites to the ordinary mouthful, you will
find that thirty mouthfuls will pretty
nearly, or completely, satisfy your work-
ing-man's appetite. Mixed foods take
much less time, usually about half, and
still the seventy-five-rhythm act will con-
sume only about twenty minutes to per-
form with physiologic thoroughness.

SALIVAL ACTION ON STARCH FOODS

Here are some statements easy to
prove or disprove by anyone, with real
compensation in the way of new revela-
tions relative to the possibilities of gus-
tatory enjoyment.

Starchy foods, such as bread, pota-
toes, etc., require from thirty to seventy
masticatory movements to assist saliva
to turn the starch into "grape sugar/'
[68]

WHAT IS PROPER MASTICATION?

which is the form in which it can be used
as nourishment.*

You will at once think, no doubt, that
a range of numbers extending from
thirty to seventy is pretty wide. So it
is ; but conditions regarding the qualities
of not only breads, but potatoes, and also
conditions relative to the strength or
supply of saliva, differ greatly. When
the appetite is keen, the mouth watering,
as they are at the beginning of a meal,

* Although I have been a close student of the sub-
ject for more than fifteen years in the best physi-
ological-chemical laboratories for long periods of
time— and always emulating the man from Missouri
in demanding of the wise ones in the science of the
laboratories to "Show me!" — I maks the statements
relative to what happens below the guillotine line in
Mother Nature's exclusive territory of responsibility
on the authority of the laboratory territory experts ;
but only, mind you, when my personal observations
and business logic approve the conclusion. There-
fore, when I tell you that starch turned into dextrose,
or "grape sugar," is assimilable as nourishment, and
that starch which is not thus chemically transformed
by saliva is not capable of becoming nourishment, I
am not "speaking by the book," which Mother Na-
ture has opened for me to read — unless biological-
chemists can be considered to be extra-enlightened
forms of nature.

[69]

fletcherism: what it is

bread or potatoes may be negotiated into
nutriment ready for the stomach in
much less time than later on. Appetite
''peters," as miners say, gradually, and
does not stop with a bang and shut off
like an electric light when connection is
broken. It checks up, slows down, and
tapers off gradually, and that is where
the canny intelligence of a faithful
Fletcherizer stands himself in good use-
fulness. When Appetite gently says:
"Now, really, you are still rather good
to my assistant Taste, and he would not
object to a few bites more; but if you
stop now and change off to something
else which I have in mind, and for which
I have a use in our organism, I will not
object." In plain words: 'T have
enough for the present; switch off on

to "

The difference between putting on fat
in the case of the person who is disposed
or permitted to put on more fat than is
comfortable, and losing some of the sur-
plus carried on the abdomen or else-

[70]

WHAT IS PROPER MASTICATION?

where, is the discrimination exercised
in regard to the final satisfaction of ap-
petite. Those last two, three, or a few
mouthf uls after Appetite has said gently
"Enough,'' and before the same Appetite
says, loudly, "Stop!" are the diiference
between obesity and decency of form.

I really believe, from the results of my
experiences for the past fifteen years in
getting tips from Mother Nature, and
trying to induce mankind in general and
my friends in particular to accept them
as "straight'' from Mother Nature, that
persons who have enough respect for
themselves to be interested in physical
culture must come to the rescue of the
pseudo-scientists who are dulled by their
own dope, and who are sufifering from
the malaria which collects in the dark
ruts they are following in the tortuous
complications of the alimentary canal.
The physical culturists must build mod-
els of normality for the scientists to
study.

When giving information as to what

[71]

fletcherism: what it is

happens in the mouth, and as to what
happens as a result of proper head diges-
tion, I feel as if I am sitting on the upper
lip of Mother Nature herself, and en-
trusting her messages to the current of
her own sweet breath for distribution
among her human children.

[72]

CHAPTER VI

WHAT IS HEAD DIGESTION?

My Study of the Subject — The Mouth as a Digestive
Organ — Dr. Cannon's Researches — Pawlow's
Proofs

In the latest comprehensive treatise
on human nutrition, under the title of
"Food and the Principles of Dietetics/'
by Dr. Robert Hutchinson, of London,
more than six hundred pages are de-
voted to the subject. Of these, just fifty
lines are given to "Mouth Digestion."
In a footnote of sixty-four words Dr.
Huchinson has stated the case of the
importance of careful eating, v^ith ad-
mission of a fact that v^ould mean eman-
cipation from most of the human disabil-
ities if it were repeated in nurseries and
primary schools as religiously as are the
ordinary rules of ''polite conduct,'' and
held by Society to be the basis of re-
spectability, which it really is.

[73^ *

fletcherism: what it is

When I first took up the study of die-
tetics in academic circles, nearly fifteen
years ago, physiologists did not concede
that there was any mouth digestion at
all. Putting food in the mouth was for
the purpose of mixing it with saliva so
that it could be formed into a "bolus" for
convenient swallowing. Now it is rec-
ognised that there is some mouth diges-
tion. In the meantime Pawlow * has
demonstrated that the psychic influence
has much to do with digestion. Can-
non, also, has shown by the evidence of
the Rontgen rays that mental states re-
tard and even stop entirely the digestive
processes that are going on in the stom-
ach, and has asserted, as has also Paw-
low, that the stomach digestive juices
flow in response to the reports and stim-
ulation of taste, pouring out into the
cavity of the stomach juices appropriate
for the digestion of the particular food

* Dr. Prof. J. P. Pawlow, Director of the Depart-
ment of Experimental Physiology in the Russian Im-
perial Military School of Medicine, &c.

[74]

WHAT IS HEAD DIGESTION?

being tasted, in advance of its arrival in
the stomach.

This evidence, confirming my own se-
cured by concentrated and unremitting
study of the effect of head digestion on
health and recuperative reconstruction,
is proof enough that there is an impor-
tant department of nutrition that can be
properly called head digestion.

MY STUDY OF THE SUBJECT

began with the tip from Mother Logic —
that the full extent of the personal re-
sponsibility in nutrition is located in the
head before the food is swallowed.
That is what led me to concentrate on
the mouth as the field of our responsibil-
ity which had been neglected by Science.
Even the Dental Profession as a whole
had not at that time "tumbled" to the
fact that they were occupied profession-
ally and constantly in a field of ''Pre-
ventive Medicine'' as important as now
they find it.

Everybody had supposed that the di-

[75]

fletcherism: what it is

gestion of food was effected only in the
stomach and small intestines. This may
be true, in a narrow sense, but it can be
arrested and completely stopped by the
head. Furthermore, digestion can be as
much assisted by favourable head influ-
ence as it can be obstructed by unfavour-
able head treatment.

This being so, as everybody knows,
or can easily learn, what follows as a
logical sequence ?

Here is a physiological eye-opener, as
it dawns upon the business physiologist.
The obvious inference is that if the head
can make digestion easy or stop it alto-
gether, the stomach being a subservient,
mechanical, and chemical servant of the
head in the matter, we may properly de-
clare that the master-key of digestion is
held by the head, and we may safely say
that there is Head Digestion.

THE MOUTH AS A DIGESTIVE ORGAN

The logical continuation of the search
for the location of responsibility for

[76]

WHAT IS HEAD DIGESTIONS

good or poor digestion leads us to con-
sider the question of "Division of
Labour" as apportioned by the Laws of
Normality. All the laboratory evidence
I have seen confirms my own observa-
tions of the past fifteen years that
Nature assures good results if we are
thoroughly faithful to our head re-
sponsibility during the treatment of
food up to the point of swallowing.
From that time digestion has been ren-
dered so easy by thorough mouth
preparation that it may proceed
smoothly even if the mental states
are not pleasant. Here, too, we dis-
cover that easy digestion reacts favour-
ably on the mentality and exerts a calm-
ing influence.

Some observers declare that idiots di-
gest their food quite easily. The less
mental clarity they possess the better for
their metabolism. This does not argue
in favour of the absence of mental influ-
ence, for the idiot is a sensualist, and in
the relief from mental excitement finds

l77^

fletcherism: what it is

enjoyment of taste and the satisfaction
of appetite as agreeable as do the ani-
mals under similar favourable condi-
tions.

Quite recently, when I was personally
under observation by Dr. Professor
Zuntz in Berlin, to test the ease of my di-
gestion of food as compared with others
who paid less attention to mouth treat-
ment of it, the good professor instructed
me to ''be as nearly like a little animal
as possible, thinking nothing of any-
thing." This isn't as easy for a ''live-
wire thinking outfit" as for an idiot, or
as for an ingenuous little animal having
no thought for the morrow, but the busi-
ness physiologist does not scorn to go
anywhere for light on Nature's require-
ments. One thing is sure, the person
who has been faithful to his personal
responsibility by starting the process of
digestion as Nature demands can relax
and enjoy metabolic and mental calm in
delightful harmony more easily than one

[78]

WHAT IS HEAD DIGESTION?

who has gluttony on his conscience and
the wages of sinning on his stomach.
These wages look big to the swollen
greed of cultivated gluttony, but they
are as bad as they are big, and the best
way to be convinced of this fundamen-
tally important fact is to realise the po-
tency of head digestion for well or ill,
and give it a practical trial.

The key to good digestion is in the
head, and the sooner mankind comes to
realise this important truth the quicker
will come the millennium of nutrition
normality.

DR. cannon's researches

I have just been reading Professor
Walter B. Cannon's book in the Arnold
Medical Monograph Series, entitled
"The Mechanical Factors of Digestion."
I have learned many valuable lessons
from the intestinal observations of Dr.
Cannon, and have seen the shadows he
describes on his fluorescent screen under

[79]

fletcherism: what it is

his practised guidance, and, with his
generous permission, quoted him exten-
sively in my book, The A. E, — Z. of Our
Own Nutrition.

It seems that we began our quest for
light on the mechanics and mentaUty of
digestion by objective observation about
the same year, 1898. He took a hop,
skip and jump over the three inches of
the aHmentary canal that is our personal
responsibility and, with the aid of bis-
muth blackened food and a Rontgen-ray
apparatus, began to study the move-
ments incident to digestion by the shad-
ows cast on the screen. For this pur-
pose he principally used female cats,
because they were more amenable than
male cats to the torture of being tied flat
to a cloth with the possible fear that they
were condemned to death as well as to
inactivity. Even the use of pink or blue
ribbons as bands of bondage under the
circumstances does not lure their cat-
ladyships into the quietude demanded
for normal movements of digestion, and

[80]

WHAT IS HEAD DIGESTION T

male cats will not *'stand for it" at all.

For ten years or more Professor Can-
non and his assistants were devoted to
these Dark Chamber X-ray observa-
tions, and in the meantime wading
through hundreds of volumes of Physio-
logical Archives for reports of other in-
testinal investigations. The fruit of
this thoroughness of research is more
than 400 references to reported data
and conclusions extending back to the
dawn of Physiology. To one who has
followed the accounts of the "Biddings''
in the "Old Man Greenlaw's Liquor Sa-
loon in Arkansas City," as given weekly
in the New York Sunday Sun, these re-
searches seem to be governed by the
strict rules of "Draw Poker." Eventu-
ally all of the cards (or evidence) go
into the "discard," confirming Sir Mi-
chael Foster's dictum, to the efifect that
"the more we learn of Physiology the
more we know how little we really
know."

I recommend everybody to get Dr.

[81]

fletcherism: what it is

Cannon's book and turn at once to page
74, and read about the importance of
mastication in securing easy digestion
free from fermentation. Then turn to
page 217 and read his conclusions rela-
tive to the influence of the emotions on
digestion. Put these two statements to-
gether, and then judge for yourself if it
is claiming too much to say that there
is really Head Digestion, and that it is
in the field of personal responsibility, in
the mouth and in the brain, that good
or bad digestion — right or mal-nutrition
— are inaugurated.

You will find the literary quality of
Dr. Cannon's book so fascinating, no
matter whether you know the meaning
of the terms used or not, that you will
enjoy it like a novel. It has the charm
of the diction of Sir Michael Foster
and Sherlock Holmes combined, with
enough of the solving of the secrets of
the alimentary canal to satisfy the most
exacting imagination.

If a taste for the inner mysteries has

[82]

WHAT IS HEAD DIGESTION?

been acquired by the reading of Profes-
sor Cannon's book, further desires in
that direction may be satisfied by read-
ing the physiological prose poem by Pro-
fessor Chittenden, in praise of head
digestion as the acme of sensual pleas-
ure. It is a gem, and is quoted in Chap-
ter VII following, in support of the
contention of this chapter. This poem
appears in the book The Nutrition of
Man (as studied mainly in starving
dogs), and one wonders why such a
pearl of practical, every-day. Kinder-
garten, domestic usefulness should be
"thrown to the dogs/' so to speak.

[83]

CHAPTER VII

CHITTENDEN ON CAREFUL CHEWING
A Physiological Prose Poem

It is difficult to imagine a more pleas-
urable Epicurean felicity than that de-
scribed by Professor Russell H. Chitten-
den, of the Sheffield Scientific School, of
Yale University, in America, as the re-
sult of careful masticating and thorough
tasting of the commonest of foods.

Professor Henry Pickering Bowditch,
of Harvard University Medical School,
like Sir Michael Foster and all the most
eminent physiologists, were quick to ap-
preciate the revelations of the Cam-
bridge investigation of Fletcherizing as
indicating the discovery of the missing
link in the chain of processes necessary
for securing good digestion and healthy
nutrition, but they looked on it as a ques-

[84]

CHITTENDEN ON CAREFUL CHEWING

tion of profitable economy rather than
material for poetic enthusiasm.

It was given to Professor Chittenden
to discover the rarest merit of decent
eating ; the politeness of it, as well as the
poetry; that element of respectability
which will eventually recommend it to
the socially-refined as one of the civilised
fine arts ; that expression of appreciation
which is due to Mother Nature for her
many beneficences.

THE POETRY OF EATING
By Russell H. Chittenden

"With the mind in a state of pleasur-
able anticipation, with freedom from
care and worry, which are liable to act
as deterrents to free secretion, and with
the food in a form which appeals to the
eye as well as to the olfactories, its thor-
ough mastication calls forth and pro-
longs vigorous salivary secretion, with
which the food becomes intimately in-
termingled. Salivary digestion is thus
at once incited, and the starch very

[85]

fletcherism: what it is

quickly commences to undergo the char-
acteristic change in soluble products.
As mouthful follows mouthful, degluti-
tion alternates with mastication, and the
mixture passes into the stomach, where
salivary digestion can continue for a
limited time only, until the secretion of
gastric juice eventually establishes in
the stomach-contents a distinct acid re-
action, when salivary digestion ceases
through destruction of the starch-con-
verting enzyme. Need we comment, in
view of the natural brevity of this proc-
ess, upon the desirability for purely
physiological reasons of prolonging
within reasonable limits the interval of
time the food and saliva are commingled
in the mouth cavity? It seems obvious,
in view of the relatively large bulk of
starch-containing foods consumed daily,
that habits of thorough mastication
should be fostered, with the purpose of
increasing greatly the digestion of
starch in the very gateway of the ali-
mentary tract. It is true that in the
[86]

CHITTENDEN ON CAREFUL CHEWING

small intestines there comes later an-
other opportunity for the digestion of
starch ; but it is unphysiological, as it is
undesirable, for various reasons, not to
take full advantage of the first oppor-
tunity which Nature gives for the prep-
aration of this important foodstuff for
further utilisation. Further, thorough
mastication, by a fine comminution of
the food particles, is a material aid in the
digestion which is to take place in the
stomach and intestines. Under normal
conditions, therefore, and with proper
observance of physiological good sense,
a large portion of the ingested starchy
foods can be made ready for speedy ab-
sorption and consequent utilisation
through the agency of salivary diges-
tion.

"Nowhere in the body do we find a
more forcible illustration of economical
method in physiological processes than
in the mechanics of gastric secretion.
Years ago it was thought that the flow
of gastric juice was due mainly to me-

[87]

fletcherism: what it is

chanical stimulation of the gastric
glands by contact of the food material
with the lining membrane of the stom-
ach. This, however, is not the case, as
Pavlov has clearly shown, and it is now
understood that the flow of gastric juice
is started by impulses which have their
origin in the mouth and nostrils ; the sen-
sations of eating, the smell, sight and
taste of food serving as physical stimuli,
which call forth a secretion from the
stomach glands, just as the same stimuli
may induce an outpouring of saliva.
These sensations, as Pavlov has ascer-
tained, affect secretory centres in the
brain, and impulses are thus started
which travel downward to the stomach
through the vagus nerves, and as a re-
sult gastric juice begins to flow. This
process, however, is supplemented by
other forms of secretion, likewise reflex,
which are incited by substances, ready
formed in the food, and by substances —
products of digestion — which are manu-
factured from the food in the stomach.
[88]

CHITTENDEN ON CAREFUL CHEWING

Soups, meat juice, and the extractives of
meat, likewise dextrin and kindred prod-
ucts, when present in the stomach, are
especially active in provoking secretion.
When the latter foods have been in the
stomach for a time, however, and the
proteid material has undergone partial
digestion, then absorption of the prod-
ucts so formed calls forth energetic se-
cretion of gastric juice. It is thus seen
that there are three ways — all reflex —
by which gastric juice is caused to flow
into the stomach as a prelude to gastric
digestion. Further, it has been shown
by Pavlov that there is a relationship
between the volume and character of the
gastric juice secreted and the amount
and composition of the food ingested,
thus suggesting a certain adjustment in
the direction of physiological economy
well worthy of note. A diet of bread,
for example, leads to the secretion of a
smaller volume of gastric juice than a
corresponding weight of meat produces,
but the juice secreted under the influence

[89]

fletcherism: what it is

of bread is richer in pepsin and acid,
i.e., it has a greater digestive action than
the juice produced by meat. The sug-
gestion is that gastric juice assumes dif-
ferent degrees of concentration, with
different proportions of acid and pepsin,
to meet the varying requirements of a
changing dietary."

[90]

CHAPTER VIII

THE THREE INCHES OF PERSONAL
RESPONSIBILITY

The Effect of Prejudice — Professor Fisher*s
Experiment

While Professor Cannon was grop-
ing about in Nature's alimentary pre-
serves in comparative darkness, I con-
centrated my attention upon the first
three inches of the canal which comprise
the field of our personal responsibility,
and which has been neglected by most of
the students of the subject.

While the area considered was right
out in front, and open to visual inspec-
tion all the time, the opportunity to study
its most important features having to do
with nutrition was not continuous. Mr.
Edison may rivet his attention on an
electrical problem and stick to it for
forty-eight hours on a stretch, but Taste

[91]

fletcherism: what it is

is only occasionally on exhibition for ob-
servation and cannot be pressed into
long service at any one time. For test
of normal Taste only the time required
for the most economic nutrition is avail-
able. A real body-need with keen appe-
tite is the first healthy excuse for calling
on Taste to perform. Normal appetite,
too, being satisfied with appetising
foods, is of brief duration. One may
linger over a meal as long as desired,
enjoying the intimate memory of the
gustatory gratification in leisurely proc-
ess, but in case of a first-class labouring
man's hunger and the exigency of a rail-
way station dinner in the midst of a
desert, industrious application of faith-
ful Fletcherizing for fifteen minutes will
usually supply the real needs of the mo-
ment for eight hours at least. This es-
timate involves a healthy condition of
the nutrition department, including an
abundance of powerful saliva for the
hastening of the mouth treatment, but

[92]

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

such a beatific facility can be secured in
a very short time by the faithful and
intelligent employment of all depart-
ments of head digestion.

A person who specialises on the mouth
end of the alimentary canal has plenty
of time to rest between inspections. He
will naturally watch for any feeling of
results that may happen while Mother
Nature is doing her twenty-five feet of
digestion and absorption, but if his part
has been performed properly, there will
be no news of the process until there is
something to excrete from the material
ingested. When this occurs, if a micro-
scope is handy for minute inspection, it
will be found that most of the excreta
is composed of what I think of as the
dandruff of the alimentary canal. It is
composed of shapeless particles of skin
which have been discarded by the mu-
cous surface of the canal in the same
manner that dead skin is being continu-
ally detached from the head and all parts

[93]

fletcherism: what it is

of the external surface of the body. De-
pending on the nature of the food, there
may be small particles also of indigesti-
ble cellulose from vegetable foods and
the condensed solids of the digestive
juices when they have been used and
worn out.

THE EFFECT OF PREJUDICE

I have noticed that the early preju-
dices in favour of or against foods are
likely to prevail throughout life. I have
observed this in trying to secure local
appreciation for my own favourite New
England dishes in foreign countries.
Tinning, or canning, science has made it
possible to serve Boston baked beans
and brown bread or even an entire
Thanksgiving Dinner in Japan or Bor-
neo, but it is impossible to excite native
appreciation for them commensurate
with the cost and trouble of the trans-
portation. In Scandinavia, where they
file the appetite to the keenest of edges
with the piquancy of the "Smoer Broed,''

[94]

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

or "Smoer Goes," * the American taste
for very sweet things is not appreciated.
Chocolates for that market are more bit-
ter than sweet, and so it goes throughout
the world where head digestion is im-
portant in determining the prescription
of foods.

At one time, during a year and a half
of travel in unusual countries where the
French, English or American memi is
not easily available, I never missed an
opportunity to study the effect of head
prejudice on digestion. If the fortunate
opportunity occurs to sample the sump-
tuous "ris taver^ of Java, there will be
the best of chances to confirm my ob-
servation in this regard. This dish is
varied in sumptuousness, or variety, but
the humblest offering of it consists of
a large and deep soup plate piled high
in the middle with snowy rice with each
individual grain unbroken. This, to be-
gin with, is a triumph of oriental culi-

* Literally "Butter-goose"; a table set apart, with
bread and butter and a variety of snacks.

[95]

fletcherism: what it is

nary art. Surrounding this rice moun-
tain are dabs of every sort of a "relish'*
any one ever imagined. You select
these from tiers of plates borne in each
hand by as many as a dozen servants,
following each other in procession, and
presenting opportunities of choice
amounting to twenty or more, perhaps
even thirty or more in extraordinary
cases. Hence it is the privilege of the
guest to take much or little of any, or
all, of the condiments according to the
state of his appetite or greed. All the
colours and nearly the whole food king-
dom are represented, and the temptation
IS increased by the art of rearrangement.
There is no way of judging what each
sort of relish is : It may be fish, fowl,
vegetable, tuber, side-meat, or a com-
bination of nuts or fruits, as far as the
intelligence of the uninitiated goes.

There were several members of the
party of foreigners of different degrees
of prejudice against anything strange

[96]

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

in appearance. To one, all of the comes-
tibles were "utterly impossible/' and
remained so to the end ; while to others
curiosity got the better of suspicion, and
finally the appetites looked forward to
dinner-time with especial cordiality, for
the rice-mountain relish-cordon and the
complicated combination were digested
with ease.

The standard dish, however, of the
Javan dinner is boiled potatoes and beef-
steak swimming in a pint of good butter
gravy, so that even the conscientious
dietist with vegetarian preferences may
revel in something that smacks of home
and mother, with such an abundance of
luscious fruits that nothing but gusta-
tory delight happens as a usual thing.
Still, it is the same in Java or Japan, in
London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rome or
New York, the digestion of food is un-
der the control of the head and therefore
may be called head digestion.

[97]

fletcherism: what it is

PROFESSOR fisher's EXPERIMENT

The most important large experiment
for the testing of head digestion under
conditions of strict scientific control was
that inaugurated and conducted by Pro-
fessor Irving Fisher, of Yale Univer-
sity, in America.

Professor Fisher occupies the Chair
of Political Economy at Yale, has made
extensive researches into the factors
that influence the economies or extrava-
gances of living, and is President of the
Committee of One Hundred of the
American Association for the Advance-
ment of Science on Health.

Professor Fisher's interest in mv rev-
elations and tests relative to the potency
of head digestion came primarily from a
personal test which worked wonders for
him in establishing a foundation for
good health. He was not satisfied with
the later Chittenden experiments, be-
cause they substituted academic pre-
scription for natural selection in formu-

[98]

Horace Fletcher in his Master of Arts Robes

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

lating the rules of the inquiry. Like
myself, in conducting the original re-
searches, Professor Fisher realised that
the practical value of my discoveries was
that no one needed a biological chemist
to order his meals for him or tell his
appetite what his body needed in the way
of food elements.

The Fisher experiment worked with
nine healthy undergraduates who were
ambitious to take high scholastic hon-
ours, and who had little time for ath-
letics or any form of physical exercise,
they being types of the average Univer-
sity undergraduate.

A generous table was supplied them
with meat and every variety of food that
usually composed college fare. The
only instructions were that thorough
mastication and especial attention to the
enjoyment of the food as recommended
by me in my books should be faithfully
performed. This course was pursued
for half a year, and for the rest of the
year, in addition to the careful head

[99]

fletcherism: what it is

treatment and enjoyment, preference
was to be given to foods known to be
low in nitrogen content; but not to the
extent of suppressing any distinct call
of appetite for them.

In the first half of the experiment
the men held their own on about 40 per
cent, less food, computed by cost, and
increased their strength-endurance abil-
ity by something more than 100 per
cent., with the added felicity of feeling
unusually fit all of the time, entirely es-
caping the slack or sick spells they had
been accustomed to, and improving
greatly in their general studentability,
that is : power of concentration, memory,
mental comfort, profundity of sleep, etc.

During the second half of the experi-
ment still more improvement was se-
cured owing to the readiness of the body
to accommodate itself to the wish by
favouring the economies.

I have not a copy of the report at
hand. It is included in the publications
of Yale University about 1905.
[100]

The Author, on his Sixtieth Birthday, performing Feats of

Agility

ANP Strength which would be remarkable even in a Young

Athlete.

PERSONAL RESPONSlI^HiilT^ .' ^ '''

While all of the abundance of con-
firmatory evidence which has accumu-
lated since 1898 is valuable and gratify-
ing, the verdict of the unremitting ob-
servation since then is that the problem
of nutrition is always a personal one.
After fifteen years of devotion to the
study of the head-end question, with due
attention to the tell-tale excreta and the
product expressed in terms of energy
and general comfort, I am unable to pre-
dict what my body is going to want to-
morrow in the way of nutrition supply.
I can say with some confidence that if
I go on doing as I have been accustomed
to doing daily, and no shock of grief or
surprise intervenes to upset all calcula-
tions, I am likely to find nutritive satis-
faction as expressed by appetite among
the foods that are commonly agreeable
to me.

If I am compelled or impelled to do a
great stunt of walking or other unusual
exertion, or receive crushing news, all
my present predictions may be useless.

[lOl]

fletcherism: what it is

The body itself, from the hair on the
head to each finger or toe-nail will know
what it wants and will have given to the
caterer Appetite its requisition covering
the need. In the meantime each brain
cell and all of the bones have not been
neglectful of their sustenance require-
ments, nor have they been backward in
letting Appetite know.

It is fortunate that the common needs
of digestion may be supplied from a lim-
ited range of food varieties. Milk is
all-sufficient always for general supply
of the nutritive requisites. In the ple-
beian potato, which has attained to royal
rank as the result of the extensive ex-
periments of Dr. Hindhede, of Den-
mark, in co-operation with Madsen the
Faithful, has been found full nourish-
ment for ten months, at least, when sup-
plemented by butter or margarine to
furnish the fuel supply. Even in this
surprising revelation no academic pre-
scription was infallible. Potatoes differ
in nutritive value as much as 50 per
[102]

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

cent. Fresh-cooked and well-cooked
ones alone fill the bill of sufficiency, and
full head-work in assuring easy diges-
tion was made the first rule of the test.
For four months I served as a check
test-subject and speak from experience.
Nothing is ever accomplished except
by a division of labour and on the just
division of responsibility depends the
success of eflFort. Nature has given to
us the head-end of responsibility.

[103]

CHAPTER IX

QUESTION PRESCRIPTION AND
PROSCRIPTION

The Protein Enthusiast — ^Doubting Thomases

The only completely accurate pre-
scriber of nutrition for living creatures
is Mother Nature herself, and if she does
not prescribe anything by the undoubted
approval of appetite she /)r6>scribes it.

One of the rules which have governed
my quest for optimum human nutrition
in the midst of the twentieth century
food supply and other conditions, has
always been to go to Nature for final
advice in the matter.

When I say ''Question Prescription
and Proscription'' I mean that the most
positive prescribers of food have some-
thing in the food line or advice to sell,
and they proscribe as positively anything
[104]

PRESCRIPTION AND PROSCRIPTION

that competes with their commercial
product.

My eyes were opened to this possible
snare and delusion by a great doctor of
medicine,* who is also one of the most
ardent economists I have ever met — not
a miser in any sense, but a religiously
philosophical economist. He is almost
as righteously indignant against any
who use the trust which is placed in them
by clients or patients for the selling of
high-priced foods as he is at the makers,
advertisers, retailers and prescribers of
alcohol as a beverage. In his just opin-
ion it is as wicked, or almost as wicked,
to advise unprofitable extravagance of
any sort as it is to prescribe poison.

To this discriminating philosopher
food is the basis of health-wealth, and
sacred to its divine usefulness.

The great harm fhat was done to the
world by the academic prescription of
excessive protein rations t was that it

*Dr. M. Hindhede: Copenhagen, Denmark.
fVoit, Atwater, etc

[105]

fletcherism: what it is

started a vicious circle of extravagances
which led as surely to untimely death as
murder. The perpetrators of this per-
nicious prescription were innocent of in-
tention to do harm; in fact, they were
full of the most generous of motives in
issuing their poisonous advice, and one
of the most prominent, at least, paid the
penalty by dying miserably of his own
fatal ignorance.

I may also say that it is "presump-
tion/' advisably, for almost all prescrip-
tions of food which do not have their
basis on the natural body calls are pre-
sumptuous. Nature knows! If given
a chance to show her knowledge Nature
prescribes rightly and delivers her mes-
sage in the form of appetite and the
other instincts. She will do this in the
midst of the most complicated of arti-
ficial food mixtures, as I have reason to
know from personal experience, con-
firmed by many others over and over
again.

Therefore I may say more surely
[io6]

PRESCRIPTION AND PROSCRIPTION

than ever, that whatever nature pro-
vides and PERMITS as nourishment i

HAVE NO right TO PJiOSCRlBE.

THE ONLY P/?iBSCRIPTION

that Honesty approves is the Optimum
Economic Nutrition ; and my great pre-
ceptor, Dr. Hindhede, the ideally hon-
est scientist and doctor, ventures to
prescribe only the plainest of foods that
are delicious to a true, keen appetite,
and cost the least through being in sea-
son and so common and easy to grow
as to be cheapest.

This good and superlatively honest
doctor does not Proscribe; anything that
Nature permits as food and he does not
even Proscribe the transportation of
grapes from Madeira to the North
Cape of Norway for the enjoyment of
those who can afford to pay for them.

Would the Froscribers of flesh food
have denied Amundsen and his com-
panions the flesh of their faithful dogs
as a last resort in securing nourish-
[107]

fletcherism: what it is

ment for the completion of their
journey to the South Pole? It was
their truly last resort in gaining the
victory over the Ice God; and would to
God that brave Captain Scott and his
band of faithful ones had had such a
last but saving resort to help them ac-
complish the eleven miles between them
and rescue! But then, the world
would have missed a model of altruism
that is worth a million lives, and one of
which million everybody would like to
be, if their lives are worth the living.

THE PROTEIN ENTHUSIAST

While writing this chapter I have
been forwarded material for indig-
nation and a text for condemnation in
the form of a book so full of food pre-
scription that it is positively poisonous,
as read with the intelligence of my own
and current knowledge of the subject,
that it ought to be pilloried as a "Hor-
rible Example" of presumptuous pre-
scription and proscription. It is an
[io8]

PRESCRIPTION AND PROSCRIPTION

advertisement pure and simple, but so
prejudicial to the natural facts in the
case that it again raises the question of
the advisability of a Supreme Court of
the Physiology of Nutrition, to try
such nutrition perverters for high trea-
son to Mother Nature.

I will not name the book or the
author, to further the advertisement.
I once stopped a controversy with the
doctor-father of the author by offering
to wager him one hundred pounds that
I could beat him out on a ten mile go-
as-you-please tramp, which he had
mentioned as one of his stunts to prove
his contentions. Our ages were nearly
equal, and the difference of training
consisted of his prescribing for himself
over IOC grams of proteid daily (less
by 20 per cent, than the vicious Voit *

* Carl Voit, of Munich, prescribed as Standard
daily diet for a man doing moderate work: 118
grams of Protein, 56 grs. Fat, 500 grs. Carbohydrates,
with a total fuel value of 3,055 large calories ; increas-
ing the same to 145 grains Protein, 160 grs. Fat, 450
grs. Carbohydrates, with a total fuel value of 3,370

[109]

fletcherism: what it is

or Koenig Standards, and less by 30
per cent, than the Standard that killed
poor Professor Atwater), while I had
subsisted for years on less than half his
prescription. He warned me that I
was courting death, but that he was
providing for himself longevity by the
mile. He got mad with me, and nearly
fumed at the mouth, because I assumed
to insist that only Mother Nature was
a competent prescriber, intimating that
he was not. I could not out-talk him,
and so I sent him a challenge. He
made the excuse that he was leaving
for the Continent for a rest, but would
talk further with me when he returned.
His reputed forty-thousand-pound
office practice of prescribing his favour-
large calories. This is the celebrated Voit Diet
Standard. Professor Atwater, of Connecticut, went
further, prescribing as Daily Diet Standard no less
than 125 grams of Proteins, with sufficient fat and
carbohydrates to equal a total fuel value of 3,500
large calories for a man doing a moderate amount of
labour; increasing the amount of Protein to 150
grams, with fats and carbohydrates to a total fuel
value of 4,500 large calories per diem.

[no]

PRESCRIPTION AND PROSCRIPTION

ite dietaries had worn him out and he
was going for a rest. Later I heard
of him in a sanatorium — surely dis-
graceful to a doctor to be compelled to
go to such a place for ''treatment."

The race, or contest, never took
place, but since then I personally have
several times broken records estab-
lished by men one-half, and even one-
third, of my age with progressive ease
up to three years ago when last put to
a test, and I have noted no letting-up
of the progress of recuperation as
judged by "feelings'' or endurance
when doing unusual stunts.

In this direction I now feel that 1
have done enough, and that it is not for
age to tempt Providence by competing
with the Prime of Muscularity in feats
of strength and endurance. John L.
Sullivan and Jefferies and many more
went once too often into the ring, and
Mother Nature, not Corbett or Jack
Johnson, knocked them out for good
and all. Fletcherizing does not include

[III] .

fletcherism: what it is

either imprudence or bluff. It merely
trusts good Mother Nature for direc-
tions to accompany her nutriment-medi-
cine. Whenever at any time I feel the
impulse to turn somersaults from the
lead platform of a man-of-war into
good, clean salt-water — as I did a few
years ago or so in the Philippines, as a
demonstration to impress the natives —
I will "up and do it, or die in the at-
tempt" What I am doing now more
than ever is keeping my ear to the
mouth of Mother Nature, my finger on
her pulse of command, and doing her
biddings as well as I can interpret them.
If a thing is not agreeable to do, I take
it as a warning not to do it. There are
so many useful things to do that are
pleasant, what is the use of going out
of the way to do disagreeable things.
There are some things that are natural
and agreeable that we should do, and
which we have got out of the habit of
doing, physical exercise, for instance.
We are dealing with cultivated abnor-

[112]

PRESCRIPTION AND PROSCRIPTION

malities always in a cramped and com-
plex civilisation. "We are constantly
doing the things that we should not do,
and leaving undone those things that
we ought to do/' as the Prayer Book
tells us, including carelessness of eat-
ing, and shirking physical exercise.

To return to the callow book of the
canny doctor-son of my antagonist of
a dozen years ago. It isn't so callow
as it is canny, and since the persons in
the case are of the canniest of peoples,
those who are so shrewd that Jewish
merchants do not thrive among them,
and the prescription results in thou-
sands of pounds a year revenue, the
game may be set down to ordinary com-
mercial cupidity and popular gullibility.
It is safe to always warn against Pre-
scription for Revenue. Like patriot-
ism or religion for revenue, it is
questionable, if not surely selfishly
prejudiced.

On the other hand. Mother Nature
charges no fee for her advice. She

[113]

fletcherism: what it is

pays good coin as a premium for her
patients in the same way that I bribed
my first test subjects into eating right
by paying them for eating in addition
to furnishing the food.

DOUBTING THOMASES

who are too lazy, or incredulous, or
careless, to take a month to try the
Mother Nature Prescription as inter-
preted by me, are liable to say: ''Ap-
petite is abnormal. Taste is perverted,
and the demands of the body are wholly
unnatural.''

True! But abnormality of that sort
can be corrected in a very short time.
A "poor chap" who is lucky enough to
have to go without food long enough
to "whinney like a horse" at the smell
of fresh-baked bread and the thought
of good Danish butter on it, is not go-
ing to "turn up his nose" at even a crisp
baked potato; neither is he likely to re-
quire sweetbreads to coax himself to
eat. Correcting perverted appetite is

[114]

PRESCRIPTION AND PROSCRIPTION

like purifying a stream which is being
polluted at its source and runs muddy
all the way to the sea. Stop the pollu-
tion, and the stream will purify itself
as fast as ever it can by hurrying along
with its impurities to the great ocean
sewerage.

C115]

CHAPTER X

WHAT CONSTITUTES A FLETCHERITE

Fletcherism and Longevity — W. E. Gladstone, Fletch-
erite — Fletcherizing Liquids — Getting the Best
out of Everything — The Study of Mother-
Nature

Since the term 'Tletcherite" is in-
corporated in some of the latest dic-
tionaries, it is proper that the person
whose name has been used for the
designation should define what consti-
tutes a Fletcherite.

Any person who eats in a healthy
manner is a Fletcherite.

Any person who eats in a polite man-
ner is a Fletcherite.

Any person who is faithful to his end
of responsibility in securing healthy
nutrition for himself is a respectable
eater and a good Fletcherite.
[ii6]

WHAT CONSTITUTES A FLETCHERITE
WHAT IS NOT A FLETCHERITE

The above definitions are fully com-
prehensive, but sometimes it is more
effective to describe a thing by telling
what it is not, and leaving the remain-
der as an inferential description.

Following this suggestion, it is safe
to say, that :

Any one who eats when he is not
hungry or what his appetite does not
approve, is not a Fletcherite.

All this presupposes the ordinary op-
portunity for selection in civilized com-
munities where this book is liable to be
read and where its revelations and
recommendations are most needed.

Any one who does not give his ap-
petite a chance to guide him to healthy
nutrition is not a Fletcherite.

Any one who does not extract all of
the taste from his food, while it is in
the region where taste is developed, is
not a Fletcherite.

Any one who succumbs to greed of

[117]

fletcherism: what it is

"getting the worth of his money," be-
cause he has paid for food, or can get
food free of cost, or takes it on the in-
sistence of Aggressive HospitaHty, or
to kill time, or for any purpose other
than for the satisfaction of a real ap-
petite, is not a Fletcherite.

FLETCHERISM AND LONGEVITY

Returning to positive definition of a
Fletcherite: it is a good safe betting
proposition that all persons who have
passed the seventy year-mark in the life
race are Fletcherites in the fundamen-
tal requirement of healthy eating. If
they reach beyond the eighty year-
mark it is certain that they have been
fairly decent eaters for many years, even
if they abused themselves earlier in life.
For example : vide the autobiography of
Luigi Cornaro, which was concluded
only when he was nearly one hundred
years old. Vide also, occasional news-
paper statements attributed to cente-
narians or near centenarians who claim
[ii8]

WHAT CONSTITUTES A FLETCHERITE

to have been Fletcherites before
Fletcher was born. Some of them
have had the "constitution '' necessary
to attain the respectable longevity and
have used tobacco and alchohol at the
same time, but there is no evidence that
either tobacco or alcohol lengthened
their lives. In the same category of
questionably-profitable indulgences may
be put any of the stimulants or nar-
cotics which do not actually nourish the
body.

W. E. GLADSTONE FLETCHERITE

The Epicureans, who were true to
the principles of Epicurus, were
Fletcherites, before the name of
Fletcher had evolved the occupation of
arrow making and archery. Mr.
Gladstone was a philosophical Fletcher-
ite before Fletcher discovered that he
had a mouth that was worth while
studying and using, but the name did
not get into the dictionary as describing
his most statesman-like inspiration.

[119]

fletcherism: what it is

A Fletcherite does not confine his
Fletcherizing to food. He is en-
couraged, by the beneficial results of
careful eating, to try the same method
of co-operating with Opportunity on
anything that has good and bad pos-
sibilities in it.

FLETCHERIZING LIQUIDS

For example : careful tasting of food
reveals felicities of taste which lead to
seeking similar rewards wherever taste
is to be found. Take liquids: The
only liquid that does not invite Fletch-
erizing with some deliberation, but
seems eager to get into the blood to
quench thirst is Water. If it is not
pure water, soft, cool as if from a
spring, and delicious in its purity, it
has an inclination to stop a little in the
mouth and give taste a chance to in-
vestigate or to get something worth
while out of it. Do not think that in-
animate things have no sense of pro-
priety! Everything natural is as full
[120]

WHAT CONSTITUTES A FLETCHERITE

of propriety as an ''tgg is full of meat/'
Nature is Propriety!

Mineral waters, lemonade, beer,
wine, and even milk have delicate
senses of propriety. They do not rush
to be sucked up for the mere relief of
thirst, like pure water, but they linger
a bit in the domain of taste and infer-
entially say: "I am tasty; don't you
want to taste me: When I am swal-
lowed my gustatory charm is dead and
gone forever; please let me leave my
taste with you, good Mr. Taste.''

Do not think this is a fanciful personi-
fication of the liquids which have taste.
Don't take my word for it. I am only
telling you what Taste has told me, and
also told me to tell it to you. The next
time you are thirsty and have a chance
to get good pure water, note if it doesn't
rush to swallow itself in about one-
ounce swallows until the thirst is satis-
fied. If it is too cold it will want to
wait a minute to get to the temperature
of the body in the hot room of the

[121]

fletcherism: what it is

mouth, before rushing in to chill the
stomach, and if it is too warm it will
not give the full satisfaction that
spring-cool water gives, showing that
Taste has a wider usefulness than mere
glorifying of sapid substances. Or: is
it Feeling that assists Taste in express-
ing approval or disapproval of liquid as
well as solid nutriment?

GETTING THE BEST OUT OF EVERY-
THING

From Fletcherizing things which
pass through the laboratory of the
mouth, it is most natural to call on
Mother Nature in her stately propriety
to assist in getting the best and most
out of everything from a kernel of corn
to the World at Large.

In the personal equipment, muscular
exercise, mental discipline, and habits
of effectiveness come in at once for
analysis and separation.

Outside the personality, companion-
ship is of most vital concern, and the
[122]

WHAT CONSTITUTES A FLETCHERITE

wonder will be how soon the Natural
Appetite for profitable companionship
will choose some dogs in preference to
some human beings, for the qualities of
sympathy, approval and faithfulness
that every social being craves.

Of course, there are some companion-
able combinations among men that are
more satisfactory and profitable than
any dumb animal can possibly supply,
but it is for the purpose of finding such
combinations that the Fletcherizing of
friends is useful. There is much good
in every one, as there is in everything
that Nature offers as nourishment for
the body, but everything has its Appro-
priate place and time, its harmonious
supplements and compliments, and this
is true regarding companionships.
"What IS one man's ,food, is another
man's poison," is a truism applicable
alike to companionship and friendship.
It is equally true regarding honesty and
dishonesty; truth and deceit.
[123]

fletcherism: what it is

the study of mother nature

The foregoing constitutes a pretty
stiff proposition for the measurement of
ideal Fletcherism, but when you come
to consider that the aim is nothing less
than getting as close to Mother Nature
as possible and listening to her orders
relative to good team-work between us,
the contract does not seem so impos-
sible. It was close study of Mother
Nature and her laws of gravity and re-
sistance that led Lillienthal, the Ger-
man, to try to glide on the "wings of
the wind'' with imitations of the wings
of birds, and it was following Cha-
nute's lead that led the Wright Broth-
ers to develop the flying-machine. It
was because of tutelage in the honest
school of Mother Nature that the
Wright Brothers prefaced their first ac-
count of their "invention'' by giving
the French aviator credit for the initial
suggestion.

In similiar manner, it was the close,
[124]

WHAT CONSTITUTES A FLETCHERITE

objective study of the psychology of di-
gestion under the honest direction of
Mother Nature in a somewhat drastic
form that led Pawlow, the Russian
physiologist, to preface his account of
his great achievement by calling up the
memory of the French physiologist
Blondlot, and telling that he had de-
scribed the true process of digestion
from logical deduction fifty years be-
fore.

In like manner, Professor Cannon,
of Harvard University Medical School,
insisted that dear Dr. Bowditch, his
preceptor in Physiology, had laid out
for him the line of X-ray studies of the
''Mechanism of Digestion," which has
given him distinguished research fame.
Getting close to Mother Nature opens
up infinite possibilities of enlighten-
ment, and among them cultivation of
the honesty and unselfishness which she
herself typifies.

[125]

CHAPTER XI

ALL DECENT EATERS ARE FLETCHERITES

Dietetic Righeousness — ^The Disgrace of Sickness —
The Optimism of the Fletcherite

In order that there shall be no mis-
understanding let us agree upon the
dictionary definition of "Decent." It
IS "Having propriety of conduct."

Let us also take the dictionary defini-
tion of Fletcherite, as an agreed mean-
ing. It is: "One who practises
Fletcherism."

Fletcherism, in turn, is defined as
"A method of thorough mastication
recommended by Horace Fletcher."

No self-respecting person wishes to
be indecent about anything, and espe-
cially about things that are sacred.

I use the term "Indecent" because it
has an ugly look and sound. It is more

[126]

DECENT EATERS ARE FLETCHERITES

than thoughtless or careless. It is
positively indecent and nothing less.
So is ugly and irreverential eating
more culpable than mere heedlessness
when we come to consider what it
means in the way of consequences. It
spells Indecency from the beginning to
the end of the process involved in the
act.

You may have a very poor opinion of
the namesake in the case, but you must
be glad that he discovered for himself
that decent eating means recuperation
of health if it has been shaken: preser-
vation of health if it is a fortunate pos-
session: and epicurean enjoyment that
cannot be realized in full without it.

I repeat that the term Fletcherite is
not a personal monopoly but a popular
and dictionary creation. I am selfish
enough to be glad that Gladstone
escaped the distinction of having his
great name used as a designation of
decent eating.

[127]

fletcherism: what it is

dietetic righteousness

When I was called upon to deliver an
address before the New York Academy
of Medicine on ''Possibilities of Recup-
eration after Fifty," I used a phrase of
my own coining, "Dietetic Righteous-
ness,'" and was later called to account
for having been irreverent in using
sacred terms in connection with food
and eating. "By George!" I replied,
in righteous indignation, "Is there any-
thing more sacred than serving faith-
fully at the altar of our Holy Effi-
ciency?" "Is there any righteousness
more respectable than that which fur-
nishes fuel for healthy efficiency and
moral stability?" And the question
may now be repeated, "Is there?"

As for indecency: Is there any con-
duct having less propriety than regard-
ing our wonderful mouth, with its pro-
digious potency for protection and
pleasure, as a mere food and drink hop-
per for good material, which becomes

[128]

DECENT EATERS ARE FLETCHERITES

really swill in the alimentary canal if it
is not properly treated in the mouth?
Can any one think of anything more in-
decent than offensive odours which are
the inevitable tell-tale of indecent eat-
ing, and which are eliminated from
possibility of development if eating has
been decently performed? The pen-
ance, or even pleasure, of frequent bath-
ing, in order that the tell-tales of in-
decency may not become public, does
not atone for the sinning in the begin-
ning. The real damage has been done
in the, and to the, delicate alimentary
canal, with consequences to be realized
later on in terms of odious disease or
premature death. These are the in-
side facts in the case made bare by
frank presentation.

THE DISGRACE OF SICKNESS

I believe it was the great American

philosopher, Emerson, who said that it

is "A greater disgrace to be sick than

to be in the penitentiary. When you

[129]

fletcherism: what it is

are arrested it is because you have
broken a man-made statute, but when
you are ill, it is because you have dis-
obeyed one of God's laws." As else-
where remarked, it is almost impossible
in civilized surroundings not to disobey
some of the natural laws: body-venti-
lation, first of all; but no sinning is so
dreadfully punished as indecent eating
persistently practised.

Some of the ancients believed that
the mysterious Something that they
called the Soul was located in the stom-
ach and not in the heart or brain.
There was reason for thus placing the
location, because the bad effect of un-
happy thought or anything that
"touches the heart" is first felt in the
stomach if it has any troubles of its
own at the moment to worry about, due
to indecent haste or carelessness in eat-
ing. To the habitual Fletcherite such
double disaster does not come. Easy
digestion has been assured by begin-
ning it in the manner required by
[130]

DECENT EATERS ARE FLETCHERITES

Mother Nature, and to arrest it by un-
favourable psychic influence for a Httle
time does not result in the production
of those poisons which wear out the
body faster than any other cause. The
worst of news may be sprung on one as
a terrible surprise, and cloud the hap-
piness for a time without causing dam-
age to the delicate vital organs. Thus
the misfortune, or its opposite in dis-
guise, as the case may be, does not set
up a vicious circle of accumulating fad
effects. The thorough Fletcherite is a
philosopher, with a solid foundation
for his or her faith in the Good that
may be lodged in even seeming misfor-
tune, and the recovery from the shock
of disappointment, in order to discover
the Good at next hand, is as speedy as
desired. The faithful one is ever ready
to go before the bar of Death's Tri-
bunal for the approving judgment his
dietetic righteousness is sure to secure.
Good circles of healthy cause and effect
have been swirling about in the organ-

[131]

fletcherism: what it is

ism as the result of faithful decent eat-
ing, and Nature or Nature's God never
fail to perpetuate the evolution of the
Good.

THE OPTIMISM OF THE FLETCHERITE

Fairness or politeness to the part of
the wonderful alimentary canal which
Mother Nature has assigned to herself
to manage is .nothing more than com-
mon decency; and no privacy of priv-
ilege can ever excuse any indecent eat-
ing. Just think of all the latitude
Mother Nature has given her favourite
child man in the way of easy conven-
ience in doing the right thing in eating.
He is not compelled to eat every few
minutes to keep himself alive, as he is
compelled to do in breathing: or every
few days, as in hydrating his internal
economy with moisture. Never is he
caught with his bunkers empty of food
for fuel or repair material. Be he as
thin as a hatpin, comparatively, he has
stored under his skin enough nourish-
[132]

DECENT EATERS ARE FLETCHERITES

ment to last him comfortably for a
month. Neither is he terrorised by the
conventional gnawing of hunger. He
is per force wise as to the physiology of
nourishment and his stored resources
within, and turns any impatience for
his habitual rhythm of feeding into a
savings bank fund for use when con-
venient. He is not frightened to death,
as indecent thinkers or eaters are, by
the prospect of a fast lasting a few
hours or days. He knows that he has
on him and in him enough reserve sup-
ply of nourishment in the form of visible
or interstitial fat, and other necessary
supply, to last for a long time, forty or
fifty days, at least, and there is plenty
of time for expected or unexpected
relief to happen. He comes to know
the value of his mechanism, and the
mental and soul essence it produces and
supports. His knowledge of his own
resourcefulness is sufficient to enable
him to conserve all vital strength until
hoped for relief comes. Or, being in
[133]

fletcherism: what it is

tune with the good intentions of the
Universal Life of which he is a part,
he never dreads the promotion we call
death. It is merely a station on the
road of evolution, and just as sure as
we are of death and taxes, so is a faith-
ful Fletcherite certain that he is travel-
ling the road of natural evolution. He
has not only eaten decently in the way
of fulfilling the natural mechanical and
chemical requirements in the mouth,
but he has abstained from eating when
the mental state was not favourable,
and has refrained from worry when
the prospect of a meal was deferred for
a little while or indefinitely. He may
have been whinnying like a healthy
horse in anticipation of revelling in the
delights of delicious taste, and yet is
not filled with disappointment at the
postponement of the expected pleasure
if the dinner appointment is upset or
delayed.

This quite Utopian possibility of
stable equanimity is the assured result
[134]

DECENT EATERS ARE FLETCHERITES

of consistent decent eating, and think-
ing relative to nutrition. It is the con-
stitution and bye-laws of Fletcherism.
As a natural presumption, when de-
cency in one direction leads to such
delightful fruition, the opposite of it,
indecency, must swing its pendulum
to the extent of its full scope in the
contrary direction, and it does, for com-
pensation is one of the laws of Nature
that must be fulfilled. It is true that
Nature is always trying to accom-
modate herself to any abuse. She may
permit being so much accustomed to
it that the punishment of it at the
moment is not noticed. She even en-
courages the acceleration of the vicious
circle that leads to momentary bank-
ruptcy of resistance, penitence, and re-
form, as in the case of "bilious at-
tacks.'' The man who takes his daily
or hourly prescription of alcoholic stim-
ulant is permitted to believe that if a
little seems good, more should be better
until he is landed under the table. He

[135]

fletcherism: what it is

becomes more and more efficient in
'^standing" the abuse until "under the
table'' means "under the sod." The ab-
•uses have, however, been just as dis-
agreeable to Normality all the way
along as the first drop of alcohol was
distasteful to the infant in arms. So,
too, with tobacco, in a less violent form.

Faithful practice of decent eating re-
verses the order of progress. Normal-
ity of taste is the new direction taken.
Appetite is given a chance to discrimi-
nate, and it chooses simple food, having
the chemical constituents required by the
body at the moment. It accommodates
itself to the daily activity, and can be
trusted as the only completely-wise
prescriber of what food to take, and
how much of it the body can utilize
just then.

Herein lies the value of decent re-
spect for Appetite in securing optimum
digestion and nutrition. It does not
treat all persons alike because no two
persons can be alike. Infinite variety

[136]

DECENT EATERS ARE FLETCHERITES

is the fundamental law of Nature.
Some persons are born to carry more
fat than others. To try to keep them
thin IS a sin against the natural inten-
tion. To allow them to become too fat
is also a sin. Strictly decent eating
settles this question in conjunction with
the sort and amount of activity that the
particular person is intended by his or
her " Hereditary Tendency " to exert.

[137]

CHAPTER XII

FLETCHERIZING AS A TEMPERANCE
EXPEDIENT

Tramp Reform — (A Remarkable Man — ^How to Enjoy
Wine — Fletcherism as a Cure for Morbid Crav-
ings — A Trial of Fletcherism and its Results —
Fletcherism as First Aid

Now we come to a phase of the merits
of Fletcherism which has already fur-
nished an abundance of evidence to its
credit. In my first experiment, not yet
under academic supervision, with no
laboratory measurements wherewith to
describe the results in chemical terms,
I was dealing with a company of or-
dinary tramps picked up in the streets
of Chicago. They simply ate what
they chose to order from the bill of fare
of a cheap restaurant, but were told to
chew everything for all it was worth,

[138]

AS A TEMPERANCE EXPEDIENT

which they made no objection to doing.
Time was of no value to them, and they
really discovered new delights of gus-
tatory pleasure which they had not
known before. Tramps are generally
persons of resourcefulness and have
a cultivated appreciation. Their re-
sourcefulness consists chiefly of being
able to live without working, and their
appreciation is made keen by the lot-
tery of chance in seeking to get some-
thing for which they give nothing.

My tramps were beery and bleery as
tramps generally are, but not so dirty;
for I paid for baths, washing, and in
some instances furnished clothing. Be-
sides supplying these luxuries, I gave
them occasionally a big silver dollar
which they called a ''cart wheel.''

It was surprising to see these degen-
erates freshen up in appearance and
lose their blotchiness and greasiness of
facial appearance. I knew how to talk
to them to get their confidence, and they
looked on me as just another "freak"

[139]

fletcherism: what it is

like themselves, but with some kind of
a money "pull."

There were fat and thin among them,
and it was a matter of surprise that
after a little some of the thin got stouter
and the fat fell off in weight at the
same time. One of them was a bellig-
erent socialist and the author of a well-
known book which had quite a vogue in
the earlier history of present-day so-
cialism.

Up to the time I began my own ex-
periment, I had been a social drinker
of alcohol in all forms to the full extent
of "gentlemanly decency," with occa-
sional slips when near the outer edge
that made me ashamed of myself after
I got sober again. I am now more
ashamed than ever when I am reminded
of my early foolishness, but since my
experiences are being turned to good
account I forgive myself. Not only
were social occasions an excuse, but I
often ordered the social occasions to
serve as an excuse. I had never re-
[140]

AS A TEMPERANCE EXPEDIENT

sorted to snake-bites to give legitimate
excuses, but I so crowded my resources
in this direction that at one time I held
the "record," for the community in
which I lived, for what was called "hol-
lowness of legs and steadiness of head,"
and so much was this "strength of char-
acter" valued in that community in
America, that one was supposed to take
pride in holding the record.

The result of my own pursuit of
thorough tasting of my food had been
that my own ponderosity of front
weight fell off, and at the same time I
had no desire for wine or beer. It was
all a surprise to me, but it was not an
amazing surprise until one day one of
my tramp guests came to me and said:
"Boss, this eatin' game is great; think
of me with a dollar in my pocket and
not wantin' beer."

In a short time I forgot that I had
ever liked wine or beer. It never oc-
curred to me to order it except for a
guest, and then I took it with him, or,

[141]

fletcherism: what it is

rather them, for there were usually
several or many at my eating parties,
but in the Fletcherian manner which is
so eminently Epicurean that a few sips
went as far as a half-bottle used to do.
Here is an important point in profitable
economics that any one can demon-
strate for himself at once and not rely
on my sayso, or that of any one else.
Later on I will tell how to do it. The
secret is worth its weight in gold as an
Epicurean prize as well as a money-
saver. I have to tell, a little further
on, of a very large experiment which
came as a surprise also. It was in a
section of country, and among a class
of people, where to escape from the
toils of the drink demon is nothing
short of a miracle.

A REMARKABLE MAN

But before I relate this climaxic ex-
perience I will once more refer to one
of the most remarkable men I have had
the pleasure of meeting. His case
[142]

AS A TEMPERANCE EXPEDIENT

covers more sides of healthy variety
than that of almost any one, but he has
even a better showing in some respects
than any. He is an M.D. ; a Ph.D. ; an
Sc.D.; an A.M.; and a P.H.D.; which
last is the ''stiffest exam." of them all.
He is a champion athlete; the father of
an all-round college champion; and as
graceful a gymnast as any one ever saw
do the "Giant Swing" on the horizontal
bar. He is also a grandfather and
now past fifty.

This was his experience in 1902 or
1903, in connection with my being
called to New Haven to submit to ex-
amination under the supervision of Pro-
fessor Chittenden. It is Dr. Ander-
son to whom I refer, and he permits my
stating his experience as often as I
like for the good it will do. My ex-
pression of appreciation of his academic
and athletic accomplishments is all my
own and not authorized.

When I was turned over to Dr.
Anderson for physical examination in

[143]

fletcherism: what it is

the Yale gymnasium, my fitness was
surprising to him as he has stated in
his reports. He was also ripe for the
reasonableness of my revelations. He
seemed to me to be in the "pink of con-
dition" himself, and he was so, as
"pink" was judged at the time, for a
man of his age.

Dr. Anderson tried more careful
mastication than usual, and paid more
attention to the thorough enjoyment of
his food with the same pleasant results
that come to everybody when making
the trial, no matter how moderate and
temperate they have been before. It is
equivalent to putting a little keener
edge on appetite than usual. Children
and even fine ladies will perk up a little
when they are conscious of being
noticed, and the human senses are hu-
man in more ways than one.

Dr. Anderson was pleased with the
revelation as a pleasure promoter, but
did not notice that he was forgetting to
[144]

AS A TEMPERANCE EXPEDIENT

take his daily prescription of stimulant.
He was a medical man, past forty, be-
ginning to slack up a little in his elas-
ticity and strength. He was reaching
that age when even the most temperate
and careful begin to be a little lenient
with themselves. His doctor friends
were in the habit of prescribing a little
stimulant to counter-balance this ex-
pected decline in energy and he took
their advice. It was the medical fad
of the period.

At first, Dr. Anderson ordered for
himself one small drink of good medic-
inal whisky a day, and the effect was
as expected. By and bye, however, a
little more was needed, and this increas-
ing demand continued its insistence un-
til three drinks were no more efficacious
than one had been at first. When I
was introduced to him he had begun on
his fourth drink daily, and yet burned
it up in his exercise without feeling it
much.

[145]

fletcherism: what it is

A couple of weeks after he began to
check up my test by personal expe-
rience, which is the only scientific way,
he all at once remembered, one day, that
he had forgotten to take his whisky,
and yet he was fitter than usual. I had
not mentioned my own experience in
this regard to him, I believe, as when
we were together he kept me busy with*
the exercises of the ^Varsity crew, and
I had little chance to give him accounts
of my full experience. Besides, it did
not occur to me that it would interest
him who seemed to be moderation and
temperance personified. And so he
was, according to the scientific estimate
of the time, but Nature has another
standard of temperance, and under her
strict guidance very little but good
spring water is needed or desired.

HOW TO ENJOY WINE

To illustrate this and also suggest a
way of letting Mother Nature prove
that I represent her correctly in this

[146]

AS A TEMPERANCE EXPEDIENT

important matter, I will give an account
of an actual happening.

I was lecturing in Buffalo, New
York, in America, and was invited to
address the members of the sumptuous
Buffalo Club. I dwelt especially on
Fletcherizing as a means of getting the
good and the best out of food and drink,
and yet for little cost, and at the close
of the lecture a dozen or more of the
audience asked me to demonstrate my
point as above. I was happy to do this,
and called for a pint of the choicest still
wine, with cordial glasses. The re-
quest caused a smile among some of my
hosts who were proud of being "one
bottle" consumers.

When the wine came I poured out
half a cordial glass as the portion I
selected for myself and recommended
the same prescription for the others, as
a "starter.'' Then I breathed and
sipped my delicious grape-juice, as I
had learned to do from the professional
wine-tasters on the Rhine, in Germany,

[147]

fletcherism: what it is

and in the Burgundy region, in France.
The others did the same, and seemed to
get unusual satisfaction from both the
boquet and the taste.

What happens is this: You sense
the wine by means of the olfactories as
you would breathe in the odour of a
delicately perfumed flower. Taste is
excited and becomes jealous of Smell.
You give Taste a taste. Something
more subtle than taste ; a sort of aroma,
so to speak, spreads over the head.
You feel the taste of the delicacy up
around the temples, and the sensation
is delightful in the extreme, fading
slowly away but leaving a lovely mem-
ory impression.

Then you take another sip, and the
sensation is about the same, and so on
for a sip or two more, when the suprem-
est delicacy of the wine ceases to ex-
press itself. Two or three sips more,
and the wine no longer tastes good.
Carried further, in this appetite-re-

[148]

AS A TEMPERANCE EXPEDIENT

specting manner, there will be a desire
to spit out the sips, and there is no
temptation to drink them.

Professional wine-tasters are sup-
posed never to drink wine. After tast-
ing it they spit out the remnant from
which the taste has been exhausted.
Tea tasters and beer tasters and special
food tasters do the same in order to
preserve their keen taste discrimination.

There is just as definite Swallowing
Sense and Expectorating Sense as there
is Taste Sense. There is just as strong
Appetite Sense for proteid, when the
body is short of it, as there is thirst-
demand for water for the rehydration
of the body. The Senses have sense!

Returning to the Buffalo Club ex-
periment in demonstrating Epicurean
Temperance: The half-bottle of wine
gave more satisfaction to the dozen or
more members of the Club who partici-
pated in the experiment than any of
them knew was possible.
[149]

fletcherism: what it is

FLETCHERISM AS A CURE FOR MORBID
CRAVINGS

It IS not necessary to supply expen-
sive wine for the complete satisfaction
of the most delicate epicureanism if
Fletcherizing is employed as an habit-
ual cream-separating means. The
cream of common wheat bread, and of
anything that the normalized appetite
favours, is as satisfying when the body
is in need of what it contains as are
drops of the most costly Johannisberger
of the rarest vintages, and nothing but
water thoroughly quenches real thirst.

The "testimonials'' of one sort and
another, including letters and verbal ac-
count, attesting to the effect of natural
eating on abnormal desires or cravings,
number thousands. The reform has
not been the result of suggestion, al-
though in some cases suggestion has as-
sisted the cure of intemperate yearn-
ings. Not alone has craving for alco-
holic stimulant been abated, but in other

[150]

AS A TEMPERANCE EXPEDIENT

ways morbidity has been corrected, and
I as well as some medical men I know,
have received grateful acknowledgment
of the happiness secured by the natural
sloughing off of weaknesses or passions
which had been a source of self-hatred.
Think what immunity from such bane-
ful possibilities means to youth of both
sexes !

A TRIAL OF FLETCHERISM AND ITS
RESULTS

The very large test of Fletcherism as
a temperance expedient hereinbefore re-
ferred to was entirely accidental. It
occurred in a community of students of
a missionary college in Tennessee.

The institution is conducted under
religious auspices, the sect supporting it
being that called "Seventh-Day Advent-
ists." The buildings are on a large
farm, and most of the students earn
their board and tuition by doing farm
work. Many subsist by what is called
"boarding themselves," that is: pur-

[151]

fletcherism: what it is

chasing raw food and doing their own
cooking. To assist in this independ-
ence there is a commissary where every-
thing needed is bartered or sold.

One of the prominent persons in the
Adventist denomination is Dr. Kellog,
Superintendent of the Battle Creek
Sanatorium, who from the beginning
has been one of the most ardent advo-
cates and teachers of Fletcherism, and
to whom is largely due the permanency
of its designation as "Fletcherism.''

During a visit to the Tennessee insti-
tution, Dr. Kellog so successfully
preached the merits of natural eating,
that all the students were induced to
give it a trial as a health and economic
measure.

The trial was conducted under obser-
vation for six months, when an account-
ing was made. During the six months
the drafts on the commissary had been
a trifle less than half what they for-
merly had been, and at the same time the
community had been free from the

[152]

AS A TEMPERANCE EXPEDIENT

usual "seasonable" and bilious com-
plaints or illnesses. No one had been
cured of a craving for alcohol, for the
reason that all were teetotalers on prin-
ciple, but the sheer economy and health-
fulness of the results obtained were of
prodigious importance to young per-
sons "working their way through col-
lege." The amount of the benefit can
be imagined when it is considered that
they needed to work less on the farm to
earn their food because the food-bill
was much reduced. The time saved
from work was available for study, and
the increase of energy and immunity
from sickness added enormously to the
average studentability.

One day there was brought to the in-
stitution on a stretcher a poor chap of
the neighbourhood, crazy with delirium
tremens. In the infirmary of the col-
lege emergency patients were received,
as part of the missionary training is
medical.

The sorry dipsomaniac was sobered-

[153]

fletcherism: what it is

up in the usual way and instructed in
the process of Fletcherizing. He took
kindly to it, as all do who have been
dietetic sinners, and the result was the
same as with the beery and bleery tramp
mentioned in the early part of this
chapter. He lost his "taste" for
''booze" and continued the incident by
becoming a worker on the place and a
sound temperance example.

Here is a revelation worth while to
the missionary workers. Their field of
service was the mountain districts of
their State and the neighbouring State
of North Carolina, which are famous
for their moonshine whisky stills. The
whisky distilled in the mountains does
not pay any Internal Revenue tax if it
can be avoided, and hence the stills are
hidden in deep forests and operated by
the light of the moon. The inhabitants
of these lawless regions are the poor-
est of the poor and call down the con-
tempt of the negroes. They are called
"poor white trash," and moonshine

[154]

AS A TEMPERANCE EXPEDIENT

whisky that will kill at fifty yards is
responsible for much of the poverty and
trashiness. They are as good marks
for missionary sympathy as any *'hea-
then'' the world can produce anywhere.
I have been among them all and I as-
sure you, these listless and luckless
inebriates of the poor white trash
regions are the most pitiable.

FLETCHERISM AS FIRST AID

As soon as the incident of the victim
of delirium tremens had been measured
at its full significance, it dawned upon
the missionaries that Fletcherism was
to be their most potent assistant in cur-
ing the mountaineers of their vices and
preparing them for religious instruc-
tion. They were won over to the ideal
of Dietetic Corpoculture as "First Aid
to the Injured" in establishing Temper-
ance on a sound basis.

Thus it was that the graduated mis-
sionaries introduced themselves to their
charges by building simple ovens of

[155]

fletcherism: what it is

road-side stones in rail-fence corners, as
field surveyors might do, and invited
those who came along to feed with
them.

There is never any trouble in securing
guests at a feed anywhere, and it is ex-
tremely easy among the poor to whom
free food means less work and more
leisure. It is easy, too, to get the ears
and attention of guests at meals who
would like to be invited again. It is
also easy to teach Fletcherizihg to
youthful dinner-guests, as Madame La
Marquise de Chamberay and I found out
in connection with our East Side in-
vestigation in New York.*

The result of this strategy on the
part of the Tennessee missionaries was
reported to a meeting at the Battle
Creek Sanatorium, and the summary of
the good attained up to that time was

* This reference is to an unique experiment in New
York, account of which will sometime be published
under the title of "Parties of Politeness," a name
suggested by the little guests themselves.

[156]

AS A TEMPERANCE EXPEDIENT

as follows : More than a thousand per-
sons were saving an average of $3.00
a month on the cost of their sustenance,
and were temperance converts through
the sloughing off of all desire for their
moonshine product. Think of a saving
from sheer waste of $3,000 a month
($36,000 a year) to a community where
$1,000 is considered to be a princely
fortune, and a saving of a thousand
human units from the scrap-heap of
worse than death!

[157]

CHAPTER XIII

THE MENACE OF MODERN MIXED MENUS

Gluttony and Avoirdupois — Contentment — Fletcher-
ism and Political Economy

While it is true that ''Variety is the
spice of life," and that an appetising
variety of plain food is more tempting
than a monotony of the most highly-
spiced dishes, every tendency of mod-
ern menus is a menace to health, and
the only way to counteract the menace
is to be especially careful in observing
the rules of Epicurean Economy.

If the soup is particularly good, there
is a temptation to go on and completely
satisfy the appetite on it. It requires
the restraint of civilized suppression to
keep from following the example of
Oliver Twist, calling for more and
more till the supply or appetite is ex-
hausted.

[158]

MENACE OF MODERN MIXED MENUS

Then comes the fish: Who can re-
sist accepting a generous helping of
this course, served in any one of the
dozens of styles that are familiar to
the patrons of French restaurants?
And how hard it is to refrain from
cleaning up the plate in a hurry so that
none of it will be whisked away by the
waiter to make room for course number
three.

Nothing has been said of the Hors
d'ceuvres of the French menu, or the
Ris Tavel of the Dutch East Indian
gorge, or the Smoer Gose of a Scandi-
navian "Spread." A fairly ravenous
person, given time enough, and with
no one looking, can be counted on to
make a "square meal" on these "ap-
petizers" alone before the soup is an-
nounced.

Mention of the "Roast;' the "En-
trees;' the ''Legumes;' the "Dessert;'
and a bewildering variety of cheeses to
be followed by fruit, nuts and raisins,
with several different wines, cordials,

[159]

fletcherism: what it is

coffee, and cigars or cigarettes on the
side. Even mention of them is Hkely
to cause psychic indigestion.

If one goes to a restaurant with a
quarto, gih-top appetite, and scans one
of the monster, modern, mixed menus
for a suggestion of what he shall order,
he will, undoubtedly, see five or six
items that will appeal to his imagination
as "just the thing" ; and if the cost is no
special reason for restraint, he will put
down on his order list twice or three
times as much as he can possibly eat in
order to be as many kinds of a fam dool
as he can be at the moment.

This is not an unreasonable or fan-
tastic illustration of the menace of a
multiple menu and a colossal appetite in
convenient conjunction. It is said that
an amorous lover has neither conscience
nor discretion. This may sometimes
be the case; but it is always a sure bet-
ting proposition that an opulent, raven-
ously-hungry person will measure off
[i6o]

MENACE OF MODERN MIXED MENUS

with his eager eyes much more than his
tummy can possibly hold.

Then follows the inclination of the
average human being to "'get his
money's worth/' even if he "must die
for it." This is not alone a human
characteristic exaggerated in sumptu-
ously-civilized communities, but it is an
animal trait as well. If a racehorse is
turned out in a field of clover that
stands as high as his neck, he will very
likely eat himself to death. Likewise,
if a little child, with the animal char-
acteristics uppermost, is given a bag of
sweets, he will be sure to want to put
himself securely outside of the whole
bag-full in the shortest time possible,
so that he will make certain that no one
will take it away from him.

GLUTTONY AND AVOIRDUPOIS

The menace of the munificent menu
also leads to the uncomfortable ac-
quisition of surplus avoirdupois. On
[i6i]

fletcherism: what it is

some persons it has quite the opposite
effect, however. The writer remem-
bers that it was a tradition in his col-
lege that the thinnest man of a class was
always the biggest glutton. Each
year, a prize of a combination knife,
fork, and spoon, was given to the gross-
est eater of the junior class. Within
my memory the recipient was always a
very thin and cadaverous fellow.

As a matter of fact, the hardest work
done by the body is performed within
the body. It is the work of digestion,
general metabolism, and the constant
and never-ceasing pumping of the blood
through hundreds of miles of veins and
arteries. If this work is measured in
terms of heat units thrown off (cal-
ories) the internal activity of the body
is as two to three parts of the whole
heat energy released into the surround-
ing air.

It is quite possible to increase this
heat expense by 20 to 50 per cent, by
merely overloading the stomach a little,

[162]

MENACE OF MODERN MIXED MENUS

and crowding the mechanism of metab-
olism to its utmost. Sometimes the
crowding is carried so far that the or-
ganism cannot stand it; sometimes
bursts ; and, there you are — dead.

CONTENTMENT

The supremest felicity is not wanting
anything. If one cannot think of a
single thing in the wide, wide world,
not even oblivion, that they would have
in addition to what they are enjoying
at the moment, their cup of content-
ment is full.

In regard to eating, to have Fletcher-
ized a few morsels of the finest food
that anyone's mother ever made, until
there is no desire for more, and yet the
contentment is of that calm sort that in-
dicates that there is no overloading of
the stomach, is gastronomic Heaven,
and it carries with it a blanket of gen-
eral contentment that covers the uni-
verse.

On the other hand, to have eaten un-

[163]

fletcherism: what it is

wisely, as the result of animal voracity,
over-estimate of capacity, and greed of
getting outside of all that must be paid
for, or, in slavish deference to aggres-
sive hospitality, is Hell from the finish
of the meal until the finish of the "spell
of sickness" that may follow the gorge.
It were almost possible to sink into the
depths of such gluttony on any one, two
or three of the best dishes possible to im-
agine; only a modern multiple mixed
menu is liable to bring this degradation,
and hence the menace of it.

Suppose, again, you are framing up
a business deal, and have a customer
"on the string." The best way to get
at his heart and pocket-book is through
the sociability accompanying a sumptu-
ous meal.

You seek a Princess' Restaurant, a
Ritz-Carlton or a Waldorf, and make a
spread of your Epicurean generosity,
your bank account, and your business
web or net. If you insist on filling your
guests full of everything, you must set

[164]

MENACE OF MODERN MIXED MENUS

the example. Results: Similar in all
cases.

Science is not even secure against the
temptation of the monumental menu.
The writer has known the citadel of
scientific conservatism to be captured by
five-dollar still-wine and fifty-cent
cigars, as accompaniments of six-course
dinner-dreams. This, too, in the in-
terest of an Epicurean Economy that
put all of the academic teachings in the
back-number list, and favored fifty-
cent banquets with nary a cigar to top
off the feast

FLETCHERISM AND POLITICAL ECONOMY

It may be argued that the waste at-
tendant on sumptuous living is the most
prolific means of keeping money in
circulation: of putting bread into the
mouth of the servant class: and that
Spartan simplicity would throw the
world back two thousand years in the
civilized progress it has made.

That might be true of some forms

[165]

fletcherism: what it is

of sumptuousness, but not as to the wan-
ton waste of food through the temp-
tations of magnificent menus. Food is
the realest of all forms of wealth.
Scarce ever a grain of wheat or kernel
of corn is wasted. The story of the
Englishman who visited Kansas, and
from there took home to London a
colossal joke at the expense of corn and
Kansas, illustrates the permanence and
indestructibility of food wealth.

Riding through the State, with a
native Kansan, an English globe-trotter
wondered at the endless fields of yellow
"maize." He called it maize, but the
Kansan called it "corn."

"What in the world do you do with
all this maize?" said the mobilized
Cockney. "Oh, that is easy," replied
the native : "We eat what we can and
we can what we can't."

In due season this strange answer
was interpreted to the visitor and he
determined to can the joke for serving
up at his club in London.
[i66]

MENACE OF MODERN MIXED MENUS

Arriving in England, the joker made
deliberate preparations to open his can
of Kansas corn to the best effect. He
invited a set of chappies to dine with
him and the piece de resistance was
Kansas canned corn.

Having engineered the matter to the
right point of curiosity, the host told
the story of his visit to Kansas and
finally exploded his iinale in this wise:
"Do you know, these Americans out in
the West are a jolly lot. They have a
dry sort of wit, too. I was travelling
in company with one of them through
the State of Kansas, which is the great
maize State of the country. They
don't call it maize, however, they call it
corn, and what we call corn they call
wheat. Well, I was amazed at the
miles and miles of maize — no pun in-
tended and no apology needed — and
asked my companion whatever in the
world they did with it all. And what
do you think he said: He said, 'We

[167]

fletcherism: what it is

eat what we can and the rest we put up
in tins r"

It took the perpetrator of the joke
another week to find out why no one
laughed, and spoiled everything by still
waiting for the point after the real ex-
plosion took place : and no international
incident is recorded in the history of
that day.

Yes, the really most vital wealth is
stored in the food treasuries. Pro-
fusion of it carries down the prices and
this raises wages by comparison.
There is always a spot-cash market for
food at some price, which is not the
case with many other forms of prop-
erty.

But the waste of the food material
itself is insignificant compared to the
waste of energy that must take place
to get rid of it, the moment it is swal-
lowed and beyond personal responsi-
bility. The transportation of a car-
load of wheat by rail from Saskatche-
wan to the Atlantic seaboard by rail and
[i68]

MENACE OF MODERN MIXED MENUS

across the ocean by steamer is small
as compared with the expense of get-
ting a mouthful of bolted bread through
an alimentary canal that is congested
with indigestion.

[169]

CHAPTER XIV

THE CRUX OF FLETCHERISM

The Value of Occasional Fasting — The Power of
Freedom from Indigestion — Muscles have Mem-
ories

Almost everybody eats with suf-
ficient care most of the time ; otherwise,
all would be on the sick-list all the time
and the death-rate would be increased
enormously.

Whatever sickness, depression, weak-
ness and other illnesses there are now
are the result of occasional carelessness
only.

The remedy for lapses from careful-
ness is knowledge of what the natural
requirements are, and training the mus-
cles and functions employed in nutrition
to work always with careful delibera-
tion and never allow themselves to be
hurried with their work.
[170]

THE CRUX OF FLETCHERISM

It should also be made a habit

NOT TO EAT ANYTHING

Without a keen appetite. This involves
knowing how to recognise a true ap-
petite and also how to detect a false
craving. Waiting for a healthful call
for food, for any length of time, can do
no harm, and should not cause any dis-
comfort or inconvenience; but exciting
a false desire and taking food before
the body is ''good and ready" for it,
starts trouble brewing at once.

If the worst results of premature or
hurried eating were immediately felt,
no one would get in the habit of sinning
in this manner. Like auto-intoxica-
tion from excess of alcohol, poisoning
from unnecessary or unwelcome food
— either an excess of it or when taken
untimely — is an aftermath of unhealthy
stimulation or exhilaration.

The crux, then, of dietetic righteous-
ness, or, Fletcherism, is habituating the

[171]

fletcherism: what it is

body to practise that Eternal Vigilance,
which is

THE PRICE OF FREEDOM FROM INDIGES-
TION

It should be much easier to instal
a habit of carefulness than it is to per-
mit habits of carelessness. It is pos-
sible so to sensitize the muscles which
control swallowing that they will refuse
to act and will cause choking if an at-
tempt to swallow prematurely is made.
Systematic attention to this detail of
care for a week will secure it as a per-
manent habit without need of any fur-
ther attention to it.

The statement that it is easier to do
the right thing than it is to do the
wrong thing: and that it is easier to
fix firmly good habits than it is to ac-
quire bad habits, will probably be ques-
tioned or disputed by many; but prac-
tice of the principles which underlie
Fletcherism will cure such pessimism
relative to the attitude of Mother Na-
[172]

THE CRUX OF FLETCHERISM

ture towards her most perfect product
in general, Man.

Man is given more liberty and more
license than any other natural expres-
sion and, with the endowment which we
call "intelligence," he is raised to a
position of partnership in assisting nat-
ural evolution and progress.

From inklings of experience it is
reasonably inferred that Man is more
susceptible to evolutionary influence
than any of the animal kind; that he
can ever progressively train himself to-
wards higher and higher superman-
hood ; that he is able to perform marvels
in taming and training other animals
and in perfecting plant life to prodi-
gious proportions. He is even "gifted"
to the extent of overcoming, harness-
ing, and using at will the "forces of Na-
ture," and dispelling the mysteries.
He can only do this, however^ by co-
operating with Nature in the most in-
telligent and faithful manner.

To ascertain Nature's requirements

[173]

fletcherism: what it is

of preferences it is necessary to begin
with the first essentials of care, the nu-
trition of the body and the management
of the mind. These basic essentials are
the first concern of Fletcherism and
really the crux of the Scientific Manage-
ment of the Highest Efficiency.

One of the most important discov-
eries in the development of Fletcherism
is the fact that

MUSCLES HAVE MEMORIES

The usefulness of this discovery rests
in the knowledge that it is possible to
make the muscles connected with nutri-
tion commit to memory the sequences
of procedure in the processes of nutri-
tion which accomplish the most profita-
ble results, and then pass on to other
details of responsibility care-free and
thought-free, fully confident that every-
thing will go on as Nature would have
it go.

Without beginning this discipline of
the muscular equipment at the right

[174]

THE CRUX OF FLETCHERISM

point and in the right manner, no soHd
structure of Efficiency-Building can be
secured. Any amount of indigestion,
or unnecessary strain put upon metab-
olism, interferes with the smooth work-
ing of the organism in the same way
that an infinitesimal weight put at the
tip end of the long arm of a lever mul-
tiplies the burden of resistance at the
short end many, many fold.

Therefore, the Crux of Fletcherism
is found in first training the muscular
and mental apparatus to proceed with
thorough deliberation relative to every
thing taken into the body; for from this
intake, and especially from the manner
of the handling of this material along
the line of the alimentary canal, come
efficiency or inefficiency.

It is first necessary to know what you
want the muscles to habituate them-
selves to doing in connection with nutri-
tion. They must learn to know what
constitutes a true appetite, in contradis-
tinction to indefiniteness of want or de-

[175]

fletcherism: what it is

sire. The muscles will soon learn to
know that real hunger (body need) is
not expressed by any uncomfortable
feelings below the guillotine line. Only
in the head, where the senses are all
bunched together for the most impor-
tant team-work, is honest hunger sensed.
We may rightly add to the list of the
senses. Appetite, and trust it with con-
fidence to tell us what the body can use
to advantage of the foods available at
the time. That the foods are appetiz-
ing is the only recommendation neces-
sary to a set of muscles trained to treat
them as Nature requires when they en-
ter the laboratory of the mouth.

Connected with the training of the
mouth-muscle outfit, there is the one
standing order. Challenge everything
applying for entrance, whether by spe-
cial invitation or in the way of surprise,
by testing it for taste-acceptability at
the tip of the tongue. Then keep on
tasting and testing, with reverential ap-
preciation of the gustatory delight there

[176]

THE CRUX OF FLETCHERISM

is in it, in the full knowledge that both
digestion and assimilation, which are
the prime necessities of. nutrition, are
healthfully stimulated by accentuated
enjoyment.

It is not necessary to dwell intensively
on sensual enjoyment of the material
being automatically handled by the
methodical muscles. The pleasant sense
sensations surrounding taste may serve
as an accompaniment to agreeable con-
versation, to the delight of beauty in any'
form, to flowers, to music, to graceful
and vivacious femininity, or to any sort
of charm, with added strength given to
the effect on wholesome nutrition.

So much for the usefulness of the
mouth-muscles, including that most
wonderful of muscles, the tongue, in as-
sisting in the healthful stimulation of
nutrition. Their most important office
is to stand guard against the contin-
gencies that are liable to happen which
are prejudicial to digestion. If there is
worry in the atmosphere: "Don't let
[177]

fletcherism: what it is

anything into the mouth on pain of
court-martial and suffering!'' Those
are the "orders of the day'' for the sen-
tinel muscles of the mouth, serving at
the outer entrance of the alimentary
canal.

In the category of "worry" are in-
cluded anger, argument, blues, or any
other of the depressant passions, and no
food or drink, other than water, should
be admitted to the canal while any form
of depressants are being suffered.

We must agree in the first place that
it can do no harm to wait for a clearance
of the mental atmosphere. Real hun-
ger is not a painful craving for some-
thing or anything, but is a most accom-
modating waiter for final collection of
all the taste dividends there are due in
a big lump sum to compensate for not
getting them by instalments. Conse-
quently, if the mental atmospheric con-
ditions are not favourable to the best
nutrition, the best way to clear them is
to wait. Nothing is so forceful in mak-

[178]

THE CRUX OF FLETCHERISM

ing one modify or forget passing clouds
of pain or disappointment as growing
healthy Hunger.

The mouth-muscles soon learn to
know this beautiful provision of Mother
Nature, whereby deferred collections
by appetite are paid with compound in-
terest sometimes sure, if by the wait-
ing process the mental atmosphere is
cleared of the elements of digestive
lightning and thunder.

How delightful it is to be assured
that the best way to secure the best nu-
trition is the easiest way and that it can
be quickly installed as a habit, so that
attention to the mechanics of the care is
not necessary, leaving the whole battery
of appreciation to employ itself with the
gustatory festival.

[179]

CHAPTER XV

FLETCHERISM AND VEGETARIANISM

The Danger of Excess of Protein — The Use of Meat
and Uric Acid — To Sum Up — Profitable Economy

In the warfare against the ''Demons
of Dietetic Disturbances'' most of the
volunteer recruits go into the camp of
the MeakrSy that is, they become vege-
tarians, gwa.y^-vegetarians, or partial
vegetarians, and array themselves
against human carnivorous habits and
practices. They are comparatively few
in numbers, but make up in enthusiasm
what they lack in numerical strength.
Some of them base their objection to
meat-eating on physiological grounds,
others on sentimental susceptibility, and
yet others are influenced by reasons of
economy.

With world-wide and centuries-old
evidence before me in forming an opin-
[i8o]

FLETCHERISM AND VEGETARIANISM

ion, I say without hesitation that the
weight of argument is in favour of a
meatless diet most, if not all, of the time,
and that all who subsist on the first-hand
fruits of the soil and do not resort to
cannibalism, except in cases of emer-
gency, are on the safer side.

THE DANGER OF EXCESS OF PROTEIN

To mention the greatest danger from
using meat for nutrition first, we find it
almost impossible to eat most meats
without taking into the organism more
protein (nitrogen) than is required for
repair of the broken-down tissues; and
we now know that any excess of protein
or nitrogen imposed upon the body is
not good for it. Large excess is posi-
tively deadly in its final effects, and
many, if not all of the so-called uric-
acid troubles or diseases are traced to
such abuse.

Not only are the kidneys worn out
long before their time, but high blood-
pressure is one of the baleful results
[i8i]

fletcherism: what it is

that lead to untimely demise. To be
sure, persons are reported to have lived
to near or quite an hundred years of age
as habitual meattvs, but their occupa-
tions or activities have been favourable
to burning up the dregs of metabolism,
and the belief is reasonable that if they
had not been thus self-abusing during
the first century of their life they might
have gone quite a piece into the second
century with their matured experience,
example, and wisdom, serving the world
to good advantage.

THE USE OF MEAT

That meat is an emergency expedient
in the natural nutrition of man is pretty
certain. Strictly speaking, we are all
of us subsisting on meat all of the time,
but it is only one degree removed from
the vegetable kingdom, when we ingest
only the first fruits of the soil, as vege-
tarians do, and make meat of it within
us. The vegetable nutriment is trans-

[182]

FLETCHERISM AND VEGETARIANISM

formed into our own flesh and blood in
the form of fat chiefly, and then is used
to furnish whatever heat and repair ma-
terial we happen to need. When sec-
ond-hand, already dead and decompos-
ing meat is eaten and thus used for life-
giving purposes, it is really not only
second-hand supply but third-hand ma-
terial. For instance, we may subsist
exclusively on vegetable or farinaceous
material and get our repair or fuel sup-
ply from such sources only. The result
IS, in part, the forming of the walls of
our own stomach. These walls are
meat. Should we turn into cannibals,
devouring each other as the Pacific (?)
Islanders used to treat missionaries and
enemies, the stomach walls become tripe
and are easily digestible. While they
were live walls, holding in place glands
secreting powerful gastric juice, they
resisted the digestive aggression of their
own juice, but the moment they were
separated from their own living com-

[183]

fletcherism: what it is

bination, quite similar gastric juice di-
gested them as quickly as it does the
white meat of a pet chicken. It is
physiologically possible to cut out a part
or the whole of our own stomach, and
then devour and digest it as tripe in the
small intestines.

Hence it is that we are all meaters,
perforce, but not all of us are third-
degree-removed cannibals. What we
call "pure vegetarians" are only second-
hand meattrs,

I am indebted to the distinguished
champion tennis-player, diet-reformer,
and restaurator Eustace Miles, for the
name "Meaters" to designate those who
eat meat; and I have coined the term
"Mealers" to stand for those who take
only first-hand earth-fruit products for
their nutrition, disregarding the fact
that all are mealers who take meals of
victuals. To offset this addition to the
vocabulary, it would do no harm to drop
off the use of "Meals" and "Victuals,"
[184]

FLETCHERISM AND VEGETARIANISM

leaving ''Mear' to mean only one thing;
viz., ground cereals or vegetables.*

One of the details of carefulness in
Fletcherism is expressed in the state-
ment that we should not /proscribe as
food anything that Nature permits to be
utilized as food; but the same careful-
ness prescribes that we do not prescrihQ
it as food for everybody all of the time.
Everything in its proper time and place
IS one of the common-sense rules of the
system.

Captain Amundsen and his comrades,
as I have already observed, were quite

* It is not outside the province of Fletcherism to
Fletcherize our vocabulary and make it as single-
meaning as possible in the interest of simplicity. The
term " Fletcherize" is already commonly used to
suggest analysis and digestion of crude raw material
other than food, and has come into use in literary
circles with especial usefulness. Young reporters on
newspapers are often told by editors to take their
"copj" in hand and "Fletcherize" it before handing
it in for printing. Even such a judicial person as
Mayor Gaynor, of New York, had recourse recently
to such advice relative to evidence, but he called
it by a name of his own not yet in common use.

[185]

fletcherism: what it is

justified in devouring their faithful and
friendly sledge dogs when necessary to
preserve their own lives. I have the
acquaintance of a collie dog whom I love
devotedly; and I say "whom" appropri-
ately because he is as intelligent as I am,
and far more consistent in his habits of
orderliness and naturalness. He is a
real gentleman at all times and as good
a Fletcherite when the food substance
and occasion demand as I am. He has
learned to eat and enjoy apples and no
one could give more careful mouth-
treatment to some sorts of food than
Bruce. I am sure that he would want
me to eat him if I needed him to pre-
serve my life, just as unselfishly as the
Japanese soldiers, and more recently the
Balkanese soldiers, gave their lives for
their causes. Whether I would eat him
or not I cannot say, and I do not know
if he would have similar consideration
or otherwise for me.

I merely use this illustration as an
aside in consideration of the question of
[i86]

FLETCHERISM AND VEGETARIANISM

flesh eating on emergency or sentimen-
tal grounds. Nature permits Bruce
and me to eat each other, and if we man-
aged it skilfully we could attack each
other's extremities at the same time, as
long as we did not encroach on our vital
machinery, and really eat each other up,
as young lovers would like to do.

Thus much for sentiment. We are
subsisting on ourselves all of the time;
we can nourish ourselves at the expense
of each other if we will.

We can eat human flesh as nourish-
ingly as we can a Spring chicken, and
if we do not know what we are eating,
Nature will say us never ''No,'' but there
are other considerations more practical
for every-day consideration. These
are : physiological and economic expedi-
ency.

MEAT AND URIC ACID

In the thorough investigation that Dr.
Hindhede, of Copenhagen, has con-
ducted for the past few years, and in

[187]

fletcherism: what it is

which I have assisted, I have followed
the quest with eagerness because of the
thoroughness of it. It has been proven
that very little protein or nitrogen is
needed for the human body even under
strain of hardest physical or mental ac-
tivity. On the other hand, it has been
found that any appreciable excess of
protein or nitrogen results in both uric
acid secretion and increased blood-pres-
sure, meaning, in all probability, finally
fatal strain on the organism. It has
also been demonstrated that it is almost
impossible to take the leaner meats
without getting more protein or nitro-
gen than the body needs.

It is quite easy to get excessive pro-
tein and nitrogen from vegetable, far-
inaceous, and hen-fruit material, and
cheeses are richer than anything in these
"strong" food ingredients; but these
are not such subtle foolers of the appe-
tite as meats done up in spicy gravies
and accompanied by appetising fats.

I purposely avoid giving any figures
[i88]

FLETCHERISM AND VEGETARIANISM

relative to the food values under men-
tion because the first rule of Fletcher-
ism in connection with the selection and
intake of food is to leave that entirely
to appetite, working intelligently and
normally in relation to the food that is
available at the moment.

To my thinking, the most important
consideration is economy,, not alone o£
the money cost of food, but economy
of energy-consumption within the body.
There may be times when economy of
money-cost means much to persons
struggling to lay aside an independent
competency for the purchase of leisure
in old age, or for insurance against be-
coming a burden upon others ; and this
is sure to happen to all who are not
cursed by the handicap of money in-
heritance. But it is the internal econ-
omy of the body that counts for most
in estimating values. There is no
doubt but what flesh food is a stimu-
lant of the same or similar character of
alcohol. Both of these subtle agents of

[189]

fletcherism: what it is

intemperance invite the starting and ac-
cumulation of vicious cycles or circles
(swirls) of over-stimulation that have
one bad effect, at least, on the comfort
and efficiency of the muscular tissues.
They facilitate fatigue and "that tired
feeling," and also may result in con-
tingent "soreness" of muscle after un-
usual exercise.

Faithful Fletcherizing has resulted
in regulating these matters in a way
that is nothing less than marvellous un-
til the reasons are revealed.

Not only does observance of the habit
and practice which Mr. Rockefeller has
condensed into thirty-three words, in-
cluding several repetitions for empha-
sis, result in settling the questions of
appropriateness, economy, emergencies,
and comfort in general between the
Meaters and the Mealers; between the
mixed Meaters and Mealevs; and be-
tween the Physiology and Psychology
of normality; and which Mr. Rockefel-
ler calls "Fletcherizing," but a whole lot
[190]

FLETCHERISM AND VEGETARIANISM

of beneficent cycles or circles (rhythms)
of profitable felicities are set in motion.

TO SUM UP

The Mealers have the advantage of
the argument in that they are always
on the safer side of prudence, and there
is no real deprivation involved in the
experiment.

At the present moment I am, person-
ally, still in the experimental field as
regards everything that Nature permits
as food or drink. There is one point
that vegetarianism has not satisfactorily
answered as yet. The great majority
of conscientious vegetarians have not
the pink complexion that is usually reck-
oned as a sign of beauty or robustness,
but I have known one, Frederick Mad-
sen (Madsen the Faithful), an assistant
of Dr. Hindhede in Copenhagen, to sub-
sist on potatoes and butter, or marga-
rine, alone, for three hundred days con-
secutively, stopping only because the
potatoes to be had in the market were

[191]

fletcherism: what it is

not as good as desired, and he lost none
of his pinky-pinkness of complexion of
the richest Scandinavian brilliancy. I
have done the same for four months
with similar results of retention of pink-
ness of complexion. Another question
is: Does pinkness indicate health? It
is not the necessity of health among
Latins and bronzed Orientals, but it un-
derlies the bronze exterior in even
African Negroes, if they are healthy.
Sallow is the reverse of healthy in pro-
portion to the sallowness, as a usual
thing.

Just here is where the efficacy of care-
ful eating, which has been formulated
as Fletcherism, comes into service most
agreeably to make life really worth liv-
ing and actually one continuous festival
of usefulness and pleasure. It is only
once formed into a habit and set to work-
ing automatically under the direction of
Appetite, Taste, Feeling, Instinct, and
the other attributes of sub-conscious In-
telligence.

[192]

FLETCHERISM AND VEGETARIANISM

It will be noted that Mr. Rockefeller,
in his recent pithy, gisty utterance rela-
tive to the merits of Fletcherizing,
makes no mention of the kind of food
to be recommended. Happily, as far
as I know, he is not in the food business,
has no connection with any special food
supply, and cannot recommend any of
the products of petroleum as food or
drink. He should be absolutely un-
prejudiced in his judgment, and seven
or eight years of recuperative experi-
ence, similar to mine of a longer period,
is material for judgment and recommen-
dation.

Some years ago there was born in me
the ambition to formulate the rules of
economic procedure in securing optimum
nutrition in a space of not more than
ten pages of coarse print that mothers,
teachers, and children of primary school
age could understand as easy as the
noses on their faces. Mr. Rockefeller
has "beat me out'' in brevity by several
lengths. He has made the revelation
[193]

fletcherism: what it is

with the lucky number of thirty-three
words, and left room for a final remark
full of scriptural tone, as is his wont.

PROFITABLE ECONOMY

There is one argument in favour of a
meatless diet that appeals to everybody,
and that is the economy and cleanliness
of it In Professor Irving Fisher's
classic investigation to test the merits
of Fletcherism it was proven that care-
ful attention to the mastication, insaliva-
tion, and enjoyment of food while in the
mouth, and swallowing only in response
to a strong invitation to swallow, and
removing from the mouth whatever re-
mainder that did not practically swallow
itself, a net gain of approximately 40
per cent, was achieved without any at-
tempt at economy. The saving was in
the money cost alone, and it came from
more and more inclination towards far-
inaceous and vegetable foods and away
from more expensive meat.

This form of saving is very telling.

[194]

FLETCHERISM AND VEGETARIANISM

Dr. Francis E. Clark, founder and
permanent president of the great Inter-
national Christian Endeavour organiza-
tion, noticed a reduction of one-third in
the food expenses of his family. The
health officer of a suburb of Hamburg
accomplished a saving of two thousand
marks a year in his family of three with-
out other assistance than careful eating
and an inclination towards non-flesh
food material. The *Toor White
Trash" community in America, before
mentioned, saved an average of three
dollars a month each, three thousand
dollars a month among a thousand mem-
bers of the community, and the mission-
ary workers who taught them to Fletch-
erize save half of the cost of their sus-
tenance. Accompanying all of this
wonderful economy was an immunity
from the ordinary illnesses that was
worth more than the money saving.

In the Rockefeller family any decrease
in the cost of food is a negligible quan-
tity in comparison with the total ex-

[195]

fletcherism: what it is

penses, but seven years of immunity
from indigestion and replacing the
demon with good golf-health form have
been worth more than millions of money.

[196]

APPENDIX

WAS LUIGI CORNARO RIGHT?

A PAPER READ BEFORE THE PHYSIOLOGICAL

SECTION OF THE BRITISH MEDICAL

ASSOCIATION, AUGUST, IQOI, BY

ERNEST VAN SOMEREN

Mr. President and Gentlemen:

Being a general practitioner, it is with
some trepidation and an apology that I pre-
sent myself before this section. The rea-
sons for my doing so are: First, that I
believe that a hitherto unsuspected reflex
in deglutition has come to light which has
an important bearing on health, the preven-
tion of disease and on metabolism. Second,
that any theory whatever, based on a possi-
ble physiological function, claiming to dimin-
ish, as this does, the amount of sickness
and suffering now existent, should have seri-
ous investigation. Third, that I desire to
enlist your skilled help in the consideration

[197]

fletcherism: what it is

of the theories I have doubtless crudely
erected on my premise.

According to the "Encyclopaedia Britan-
nica," "Luigi Cornaro (1467-1566) was a
Venetian nobleman, famous for his treatises
on a temperate life. From some dishonesty
on the part of his relatives, he was deprived
of his rank and induced to retire to Padua,
where he acquired the experience in regard
to food and regimen which he has detailed
in his work. In his youth he lived freely,
but after a severe illness at the age of forty,
he began under medical advice gradually to
reduce his diet. For some time he restricted
himself to a daily allowance of 12 ozs. of
solid food and 14 ozs. of wine. Later in
life he still farther reduced his bill of fare,
and he found that he could support his life
and strength with no more solid meat than
an egg a day. So much habituated did he
become to this simple diet that when he was
about seventy years of age the addition, by
way of experiment, of 2 ozs. a day had
nearly proved fatal. At the age of eighty-
three he wrote his treatise on the *Sure and
Certain Method of Attaining a Long and
Healthful Life.' And this work was fol-

[198]

APPENDIX

lowed by three others on the same subject,
composed at the ages of eighty-six, ninety-
one, and ninety-five, respectively. They
are written,' says Addison (* Spectator,'
No. 195), *with such a spirit of cheerful-
ness, religion, and good sense, as are the
natural concomitants of temperance, and
sobriety.' He died at the age of ninety-
eight." Some say of 103 !

Now, was Luigi Cornaro right? Did he
make use of a physiological process un-
known to us of the value of which he was
not cognisant ? To live to an advanced age,
must we be as temperate as he, reducing the
quantity of our food to a minimum required
by Nature?

That we all eat more than we can assimi-
late is unquestionable. How can we deter-
mine the right quantity? Instinct should
guide us, but an abnormal appetite often
leads us astray. Nature's plans are perfect
if her laws are obeyed. Disease follows
disobedience. Wherein do we disobey?

We live not upon what we eat, but upon
what we digest ; then why should undigested
food, recognisable as such, be deemed a nor-
mal constituent of our solid egesta?

[199]

fletcherism: what it is

Something like the following must be a
common experience to general practitioners,
especially to those practising on the Conti-
nent. The patient comes to see us and vol-
unteers the information that he or she has
the "gout," "rheumatic gout,'* or "dys-
pepsia." Symptoms are asked for. The
case is gone into carefully for causation.
An appropriate diet and an appropriate
bottle of medicine prescribed. As the
patient leaves the room, we may, or may
not, call attention to the fact that
both teeth and saliva are meant to be
used. The patient returns, better, in statu
quo, or worse. If better, he remains so
while under treatment, and relapses
when he returns to ordinary habits. If
unaffected, or worse, we try again and
again, until we despair, then take or send
him to a consultant. Temporary benefit,
possibly owing to renewed hope, results ; but
finally the unfortunate gets used to his suf-
ferings, and, if he can afford it, is sent to
join the innumerable hosts that wander from
one Bad to another, all Europe over, trying,
praising, and damning each in turn. Their
manner of living is, of course, at fault.
[200]

m

APPENDIX

Nature never intended that man should be
perpetually on a special diet and hugging a
bottle of medicine, nor did she ordain that
he should go wandering over the map of
Europe drinking purgative and other waters.

Though early yet to speak with certain
voice, it would seem that we are provided
with a Guard, reliance on which protects
us from the results of mal-nutrition. There
seems to be placed in the fauces and the
back of the mouth a Monitor to warn us
what we ought to swallow and when we
ought to swallow it. The good offices of
this Monitor we have suppressed by habits
of too rapid eating, acquired in infancy or
youth.

Last November my attention was called
by Mr. Horace Fletcher, an American author
living in Venice, to the discovery in himself
of a curious inability to swallow, and a clos-
ing of the throat against food, unless it had
been completely masticated. My informant
stated that he noticed this peculiarity after
he had begun to excessively insalivate his
food, both liquid and solid, until all its
original taste had been removed from it.
Any tasteless residue in the mouth, being
[201]

fletcherism: what it is

refused by the fauces, required a forced
muscular effort to swallow. He further
told me that since adopting this method of
eating he had been cured of two maladies,
adjudged chronic, the suffering from which
rendered him ineligible for Life Insurance.
His weight now became reduced from 205
lbs. to 165 lbs. He had practised no ab-
stemiousness, had indulged his appetite, both
as to selection and to quantity, without re-
straint, and for the last three years had en-
joyed perfect health.

After his cure, he was accepted without
difficulty for insurance, the last examina-
tion finding him an unusually healthy sub-
ject for his age. Having leisure, he had
spent three years in investigating the cause
of his cure, had pursued experiments upon
others, and had extended his inquiries, both
in America and Europe, until our meeting
in Venice. He had also published a state-
ment and inquiry in book form, entitled
"Glutton or Epicure," which had been re-
viewed by the "Lancet."

For nearly a year I also had been experi-
menting on myself and others with various
diets, and was ready to believe that in the
[202]

APPENDIX

manner of taking food and not altogether
in its varying matter lay perhaps its pro-
tean effects on our system. I at once
adopted the same method of eating. At the
end of six weeks, I noticed that not only
did the fauces refuse to allow of the passage
of imperfectly prepared food, but that such
food was returned from the back to the
front of the mouth by an involuntary,
though eventually controllable, muscular ef-
fort taking place in the reverse direction to
that occurring at the inception of degluti-
tion.

What actually happens is this : Food, as
it is masticated, slowly passes to the back of
the mouth, and collects in the glosso-epi-
glottidean folds, where it remains in contact
with the mucous membrane containing the
sensory end-organs of taste. If it be prop-
erly reduced by the saliva it is allowed to
pass the fauces, — a truly involuntary act
of deglutition occurring. Let the food,
however, be too rapidly passed back to these
folds, i. e,, before complete reduction takes
place, and the reflex muscular movement
above referred to occurs. The process of this
reflex is as follows : The tip of the tongue
[203]

fletcherism: what it is

is involuntarily fixed at the backs and bases
of the lower central incisor teeth by the an-
terior fibres of the geniohyoglossi muscles.
With this fixed point as fulcrum, the lower
and middle fibres of these muscles, aided by
those of the stylohyoid and styloglossi mus-
cles raise the hyoid bone, straighten out the
glosso-epiglottidean folds, passing their con-
tents forward, by the fauces, the opening
of which is closed by approximation of its
pillars and contraction of the superior con-
strictor. The tongue, arched postero-an-
teriorly by the geniohyoglossi, palato, and
styloglossi muscles, laterally, by its own in-
trinsic muscles, is approximated to the
fauces, soft and hard palates in turn, and
thus, the late contents of the glosso-epiglot-
tidean folds are returned to the front of
the mouth for further reduction by the
saliva preparatory to deglutition.

The word reduction is used for the reason
that all foods tested, without exception, give
an acid reaction to litmus, when served at
table. The reflex muscular movement oc-
curs in the writer's case from five to ten
times during the mastication of each mouth-
ful of food, according to its quantity and
[204]

APPENDIX

its degree of sapidity. As often as it recurs,
the returned food continues to give an acid
reaction, while food allowed to pass the
fauces is alkaline.

Saliva, flowing in response to the stimu-
lation of taste, seems more alkaline than
that secreted in answer to mechanical taste-
less stimulation. It is found that the re-
moval of original taste from any given bolus
of food coincides with cessation of salivary
flow and complete alkaline reduction. The
fibre of meat, gristle, connective tissue, the
husk of coarse bread and cellulose of vege-
tables are carefully separated by the tongue
and buccal muscles and rejected by the
fauces. To swallow any of these necessi-
tates a forced muscular effort, which is ab-
normal.

Adult man was not originally intended to
take his nourishment in a liquid form, con-
sequently all liquids having taste, such as
soup, milk, tea, coffee, cocoa, and the vari-
ous forms of alcohol, must be treated as
sapid solids and insalivated by holding them
in the mouth, moving the tongue gently, with
straight up and down masticatory move-
ments, until their taste be removed. Water,

[205]

fletcherism: what it is

not having taste, needs no insalivation and
is readily accepted by the fauces.

In explanation of the phenomenon de-
scribed, the following theory is advanced:
The fauces back of the tongue, epiglottis, in
short, those mucous surfaces in which are
placed the sensory end-organs of taste and
"taste buds" (the distribution of which, by
the way, has yet to be explained), that these
surfaces, readily becoming accustomed to
an alkaline contact by excessive insalivation
and consequent complete alkaline reduction
of the food, afterwards resent an acid con-
tact and express their resentment by throw-
ing off the cause of offence by the muscles
underlying them.

This phenomenon must not be confused
with the cases of rumination and regurgita-
tion, which from time to time are recorded.
The food in this case is not swallowed, nor
does it pass any point from which it can be
regurgitated. Eighty-one individuals of
different nationalities and from several
classes of society whom we have studied are
now in conscious possession of their reflexes.
These seem readily educated back to nor-
[206]

APPENDIX

mal functions by all who seriously and
patiently adopt the habit of what seems only
at first to be excessive insalivation.

The dictum "bite your food well" that
we so often use, has no meaning to those
suffering from the results of mal-assimila-
tion and mal-nutrition, especially should
they have few or no teeth of their own. I
make so bold as to state that dyspepsia et
morbi hujus generis omnis will cease to
exist if patients be persuaded to bite their
food until its original taste disappears, and
it is carried away by involuntary degluti-
tion.

The important point of the whole ques-
tion seems to be this alkaline reduction of
of acid food before it passes on to meet
subsequent digestive processes elsewhere,
which then become alternately acid and al-
kaline.

In the first few months of infant life,
when saliva is not secreted, Nature ordains
that mammary secretion be alkaline. With
the eruption of teeth come an abundant flow
of saliva and a synchronous infantile capac-
ity for managing other foods. This flow of
[207]

fletcherism: what it is

saliva depends on a thorough demand and
use to maintain its generous supply. It is
just at this time that children learn to bolt
their food, — the demand fails, with a con-
sequent detriment to the salivary glands,
digestive processes, and the system gener-
ally.

A, B, C, and D v^ere placed on an abso-
lute milk diet. A drank his milk in the
ordinary v^ay, and at the end of three days
begged to discontinue the experiment owing
to disgust at the monotony of the diet. B,
C, and D continued the experiment for sev-
enteen days, insalivating the milk, but to a
varying extent, B the least and D the most.
Though D took most milk, he excreted least
solid egesta, C excreting less than B. Can
one infer that increased insalivation of a
non-starchy food insured its better digestion
and assimilation? Each subject took as
much milk only as his appetite demanded,
D taking the most, which never exceeded
two litres daily. The weights of the sub-
jects after the usual sudden drop of the first
three days remained remarkably even until
the end of the experiment. B, C, and D
all relished the diet, and it satisfied the re-
[208]

APPENDIX

quirements of their appetites, but they ex-
perienced an increasing monotony.

As long ago as the seventeenth century,
before the transformation of matter into
energy by the animal organism, known as
Metabolism, was understood, the fact was
recognised that by the lungs, kidneys, skin,
and intestines, substances no longer useful
to the organism were eliminated, the reten-
tion of which proved harmful. The nature
of these substances was unknown, but it
was noted that however much the food was
increased the weight of the body remained
the same. In other words, a state of com-
plete nutritive equilibrium was maintained.

The following table contains the resume
of two experiments in which a state of com-
plete nutritive equilibrium was maintained
by individuals of about the same weight, on
widely different quantities of food similar
in quality. The subjects of the experiments
were a laboratory assistant of Dr. Snyder,
of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, and
the writer. The experiment of the former
was made primarily to show the relative
digestibility of the several articles of diet,
potatoes, eggs, milk, and cream :
[209]

fletcherism: what it is

Dr. Snyder's

Experiment.
Published in

Writer's Experiment-

Bulletin 4}

Age of subject . .

22 years

30 years

Duration of experiment

4 1-3 days

5 days

Number of meals .

13

10

Weight at beginning .
Weight at end . . .

62.5 kilos

57.3 kilos

62.6 kilos

57.5 kilos

Potatoes (daily average)

1587.6 grammes

159.4 grammes

Eggs (daily average) .

411.08 grammes

124.7 grammes

Milk (daily average) .

710 c.c.

710 c.c.

Cream (daily average)

2Z7 C.C.

237 c.c.

Daily urine ....

1 1 08 grammes

1098 grammes

Daily faeces ....

204 grammes

18.9 grammes

The daily diet of Dr. Snyder's subject
consisted of three and one-half pounds of
potatoes, eight eggs, a pint and a half of
milk, and half a pint of cream. The writ-
er's diet of twelve ounces of solid food (like
Luigi Cornaro) consisted of three eggs, the
remainder of the twelve ounces in potatoes,
and an equal quantity of similar liquid food
to that taken by Dr. Snyder's subject. The
exercise of the laboratory assistant com-
prised his daily routine of laboratory work,
while that of the writer consisted of six
sets of tennis, or an hour and a half on
horseback, with an hour to an hour and a
half's walk or climb daily, in addition to
much reading and writing.

In each case complete nutritive equilib-
[210]

APPENDIX

rium was maintained, although the author
subsisted on three-seventeenths of the solid
food taken by the other subject.

Again, cannot one infer that better assimi-
lation and less waste resulted from the better
preparation of the smaller quantity of food
by insalivation ? Surely, too, there must be
less daily strain on the intestinal canal, and
body generally, in getting rid of 18.9
grammes of inoffensive dry waste, than in
getting rid of 204 grammes of humid, de-
composing, and offensive matter.

"Considerable importance has been at-
tached to the normal action of the bacteria
in the intestines; and it has even been sup-
posed that the presence of bacteria is essen-
tial to life. Such a view has recently been
shown to be erroneous by an elaborate and
painstaking research carried out by Nuttall
and Thierfelder, who obtained ripe foetal
guinea-pigs by means of Csesarean section
carried out under strict antiseptic precau-
tions. They introduced the animals imme-
diately into an asceptic chamber through
which a current of filtered air was aspirated,
and fed them hourly on sterilised milk day
and night for over eight days.

[211]

fletcherism: what it is

"The animals lived, and throve, and in-
creased as much in weight as healthy normal
animals subjected to a similar diet for the
purpose of controlling the results. Micro-
scopic examination at the end of the experi-
ment showed that the alimentary canal con-
tained no bacteria of any kind, nor could
cultures of any kind be obtained from it.

"The same authors, in a subsequent pa-
per, described the extension of their research
to vegetable food. This was also digested
in the absence of bacteria. Under such
conditions cellulose was not attacked.
Hence they consider that the chief function
of this material is to give bulk and proper
consistency to the food so as to suit
the conditions of herbiverous digestion."
(Schafer's "Text-Book of Physiology," vol.
i., p. 465.)

Now, inasmuch as bacterial digestion has
no place in the animal economy, surely it
can only occur at the expense of the organ-
ism?

Can micro-organic action take place in the
intestines without the production of toxins
and the consequent absorption of these tox-
ins into the blood ?

[212]

APPENDIX

We know that the metabolism of a cell is
determined by the general physical environ-
ment of the whole organism, by supplies of
oxygen and water, on nervous impulses,
and, what chiefly concerns this argument, on
the nature and amount of the pabulum sup-
plied to it. This pabulum is derived from
the alimentary canal.

Are not even those of us who may be
enjoying seemingly the best of health sup-
plying to our tissues pabulum containing
mild toxins, thus causing an increased kata-
bolic action to occur in each individual cell
of our bodies?

Are not the blood elements, floating in a
plasma containing such toxins, rendered re-
sistent, weaker, less capable of fulfilling
their functions as carriers and combatants
of disease ?

Are not their and our lives, in conse-
quence, more painful and shorter than they
need be ?

Would not the elimination of these toxins
render us less liable to disease ? And is not
their presence an important element in pre-
disposition to disease?

When this reflex is restored micro-organ-

[213]

fletcherism: what it is

isms get no further than the stomach. They
are destroyed there by the acid gastric juices,
then only stimulated to their full and normal
secretion by the presence of a sufficiency of
alkaline substance. Undigested matter hav-
ing been eliminated, micro-organisms, still
existing in the intestines, deprived of their
means of subsistence, decrease, and, in
time, may cease to exist. The body no
longer absorbs the toxins these produced.
To this fact may be ascribed the increase of
mental energy, the general physical better-
ment, the cessation of morbid cravings for
food and drink and of those of a sexual
nature, which are noticed and experienced.

What has just been stated is based not
entirely on experimental evidence but some-
what upon inference. The inference seems
justified because the excreta, more espe-
cially of the intestines, but also of the kid-
neys and skin, become almost odourless and
entirely inoffensive. The solid egesta are
voided thickly covered with mucus, leaving
the end of the bowel dry and clean. The
sense of cleanliness can only then be appre-
ciated to the full, for it is internal as well
as external. Flatus is no longer produced.

[214]

APPENDIX

The urine is inoffensive and seems to be ma-
terially changed in quality, as shown by
chemical analysis. Uric acid, the chlorides,
and, more markedly, aromatic sulphates are
reduced in quantity.

Owing to deliberation in eating, necessi-
tated by this new habit, satiety occurs on
the ingestion of considerably less food. By
carefully studying one's self I believe it
possible to cultivate an instinct which will
regulate not only the quantity but the quality
of food that the body may need, and that in
the normal health of a full-grown body, no
more food either in quantity or quality
should be supplied than suffices to supply
diurnal waste. Any excess must result in
pathological processes.

Although there results enhanced pleasure
in the taking of all foods, rich and simple,
and especially in the appreciation of good
wines, the quantities of these foods and
beverages that suffice to fully satisfy the
appetite are much smaller than before, while
there is a marked preference for the simpler
kinds of food. The writer now can im-
agine no more pleasurable meal than one
consisting of good brown bread, eggs, but-

[215]

fletcherism: what it is

ter, cheese, and cream. These, with fresh
vegetables and a very little fruit, form his
staple diet. This tendency and preference
for simple foods is the general experience
among those who have recovered their re-
flexes of deglutition.

Following on the ingestion of a lessened
quantity of food and on its better assimila-
tion, there is less waste, the egesta are
voided less frequently, sometimes only once
in five to eight days.

The lower bowel is not the reservoir it
formerly was. So haemorrhoids cease from
troubling and constipation cannot exist.
For this same reason the body, at the begin-
ning of the practice, commences to approxi-
mate to its normal weight, increasing or
decreasing as the individual's environment
demands.

A few more words only need be said. It
has been easy to state the results of experi-
ments and observations: but the acquiring
of this new reflex, while pursuing daily oc-
cupations, is not easy, and needs more than
a little patience and much serious thought.
The habits of a lifetime cannot be changed
in a few days or weeks. The shortest time

[216]

APPENDIX

in which the reflex has been re-established
is four weeks, and this only by avoiding
conversation at meal-time and concentrating
the attention on keeping the food in the
mouth until complete alkaline reduction has
taken place and sapidity has disappeared.

In closing I wish to maintain as a fact,
gentlemen, of the truth of which you will
only be convinced by actual experience, that
by the restoration of this reflex and in com-
plete dependence on its use, there lies true
health, the establishment of a condition of
stable nutrition and the possible abrogation
of two great predisposing factors of disease,
mal-assimilation and mal-nutrition. Unless
there be among you, as in the "Cities of
the Plain," a parlous minority who possess
this reflex and take your food as you ought,
none of you are in the enjoyment of such
health as you might have. A like punish-
ment will be meted out to you as was visited
on those cities, for you will all be consumed
long before your day by the unnecessary
combustion in your bodies caused by the
circulation in them of toxins, the product of
undigested and decomposing food.

The writer, bearing in mind the warning
[217]

fletcherism: what it is

suggested by the Frenchman whose donkey
died as soon as he had reduced his food to
a single wisp of straw, finds that he is tak-
ing less and less food. While his mind
is open as to his arriving at the final diet
of Luigi Cornaro, yet it is easily conceiva-
ble that living a similar life of retirement in
a placid environment, it would be quite pos-
sible to do as he did. Hence the title of
this paper and the queries at the commence-
ment.

The objects in publishing and distributing
this paper are twofold : to make the subject
as widely known as possible, and to solicit
the aid of colleagues in investigating it more
fully.

There is ready at the service of the gen-
eral practitioner an important and potential
therapeutic agent in the saliva of his patients
and in the use ad Unern of their salivary
digestions.

Editor^ s notes, (i) Confirmatory evi-
dence of the correctness of the deductions
made in this paper has begun to come in
from many professional sources and notably
from a famous child specialist who avers

[218]

APPENDIX

that children would follow the natural re-
quirements in eating were it not for arti-
ficial food, bad example, and bad teaching.

(2) In a report of a paper read before
the Societe de Biologie, Paris, France,
March 15th, 1902, by M. Max Marckwald,
of Kreuznach, "On Digestion of Milk in
THE Stomach of Full-grown Dogs,"
the following appears: "Hence these ex-
periments confirm those of Horace Fletcher
and Ernest H. Van Someren on the impor-
tance of prolonged mastication" {transla-
tion). Referring, as the latter statement
does, to mastication (insalivation) of liquid,
it gives an important suggestion relative to
some probable causes of uncertain or de-
fective digestion in human nutrition.

[219]

INDEX

Abstinence, long absti-
nence from food harm-
less, 20, 133

Aggressive hospitality,
118

Alcohol, the abuse of,
135, 140

Alcoholic stimulant, 145

Amundsen, Captain, 185

Anderson, Doctor W. G.,
18; begins Fletcheriz-
ing, 23; at Yale test,
24, et seq., 143

Appetite, 6; wait for a
true, 10; selects sim-
plest foods, 36, 136; is
true hunger, 52; rest-
ing the, 56

Atwater, Piofessor, 12;
his diet standard, no

B

Bacterial Decomposi-
tion, 58

Battle Creek Sanatorium,
experiments on mem-
bers, 21

Beer, how to take, 60, 121

Bowditch, Doctor H. P.,

15, 125
Bradefagy, 65
Business men and Fletch-

erism, 41, 43

[221]

Calorie, the heat unit, 61

Calorimeter, 61

Cannon, Doctor, 81, 125

Carbo-hydrates in human
diet, 61

Chanute, 124

Chewing, and Fletcher-
ism, 66; Mr. Gladstone
on, 67

Chittenden, Professor,
visited by Mr. Fletch-
er, 16; volunteers to
experiment, 18 ; on
careful chewing, 85 et
seq.; on head diges-
tion, 83

Christian Endeavour So-
ciety, 44

Circumvalate papillae, 9

Cornaro, Luigi, 118

Decency and Fletcher-
ism, 126
Delirium tremens, a cure,

J53
Diet, prejudice against

unaccustomed, 94
Diet standard, the best

suited to economy and

efficiency, 60 ; Voit's,

109

INDEX

Dietetic righteousness,
the Gospel of, 50, 128,
et seq.

Digestion-ash, the, 58, 59,
93

Dow, Hon. A. G., 49

Economy of Fletcherism,
41

Emerson, 129

Endurance tests : Irving
Fisher's, 21 ; Granger's
and Wagner's, 21-22;
Mr. Fletcher's at Yale,
24 et seq.

Epicure, the true, 47

Excess of food, difficulty
of getting rid of, 38;
ferrnentation of, 47

Experiments : Someren,
13 ; Yale University,
16; Chittenden, 18; U.
S. Army, 19; Irving
Fisher's, 98; Seventh-
Day Adventists, 151

Fasting, the value of,
170

Fat, putting on, 70 ; Doc-
tor Anderson on, 137

Fats in human diet, 61

Fermentation of undi-
gested food, 47

Fisher, Professor Irving,
endurance tests, 21 ;
his endurance-testing-
machine, 26 ; experi-
ments with students, 98

Fletcher, Horace, refused
by insurance company

as poor risk, 2 ; at Gal-
veston, Texas, 3; dis-
covery of the mouth
food-filter, 6; in the
Philippines, 112; deliv-
ers address before New
York Academy of Med-
icine, 128; at the Buf-
falo Club, 147

Fletcherism, its five prin-
ciples, 10; and house-
wives, 41 ; economy of,
43; and long life, 49,
118; and muscularity,
III; and companion-
ship, 123; as first aid,
155.

Fletchente, the diction-
ary definition, 116

Food-filter, our, what it
is, 6 ; using it properly,
35, 66

Foster, Sir Michael, in-
terested in Fletcherism,
13; organises tests at
Cambridge University,
13

Fruit, how to eat, 59

Gladstone, his theory of
mastication, 4, 67; as
Fletcherite, 7

Gluttony and avoirdu-
pois, 161

Granger, J. H., 21

Grape-sugar, 69

H

Head digestion, ys ^' ^^Q'

1222}

Higgins, Father, on al
coholic stimulants, 44

INDEX

Hindhede, Doctor, 102,
187, 191

Hookins, Professor F. G.,
conducts tests at Cam-
bridge University, 15

Hospitality, aggressive,
118

Housewives and Fletch-
erism, 41

Human diet, the organic
materials of, 60

Hunger, what is, 51

Hunger-habit, 40

Hutchinson, Doctor, 73

Intemperance, overcome
by Fletcherism, 45, 141,

,153.

Intestmal toxication, 42

Japan, 2, 94
Java, diet in, 95

K

Kellog, Doctor, 45; test
at Tennessee Institute,

151
Konig, Professor, no

Leonardi, Professor, in
co-operation with Doc-
tor Van Someren, 13

Liquids, Fletcherising,
120

M

Mastication, what hap-
pens during, 7; Fletch-
erism not excessive, 64
Meals, choosing, 32 ; how
many a day, z7 \ chos-
en by appetite, 54
Meat and Uric Acid, 187
Mendel, Professor, 18
Milk, as food material,
32, 102; how to take,
60, 121
Mineral waters, 121
Morbid cravings, 150
Mouth digestion, 73, 76
Mouth during mastica-
tion, 7
Muscularity and Fletch-
erism, III

N

National Food Reform
Association, 64

Nitrogen, 61

Nutrition, the best safe-
guard to right, 48

Optimum economic nu-
trition, 63, 107

Organic materials of hu-
man diet, the, 60

P

Professor,

57,

Pawlow,

74, 125
Peristalsis and fruit, 59
Potato, the, nutritive

value of, 103
Proteids, the, 60

[223]

INDEX

Protein enthusiast, the,
io8; the danger of ex-
cess of, i8i

Responsibility in nutri-
tion, our personal, 5,
80, 96

Rockefeller, J. D., xi,
190, 193 et seq.

Roosevelt, President, 19

Root, Secretary, 19

Saliva, chemical trans-
formatipn of food by,
8; wait for profuse
flow, 52, 62; action on
starch foods, 68
Scott, Captain, 108
Seventh-Day Adventists,

151
Someren, Doctor Van,
first experiments with,

13
Soup, how to take, 60
Stagg, Alonzo B., 21
Starch foods, action of

saliva, 68
Stomach, digestive proc-
esses in, 74
Swallowing impulse, 9,

57
Swallowing sense, 140

Taste, getting the best
out of food, 10; the
test of, 91 ; and liquids,
121

Taste-buds, the, 7

Tea, how to take it, 59
Temperance and Fletch-

erism, 138, 149
Tests. See Experiments

and Endurance tests.
Tramps and Fletcherism,

138

U

Uric Acid and Meat, 187
U. S. Army, instructions
to, 57

Vegetarianism and
Fletcherism, 180

Voit, Carl, his diet stand-
ard, 109

W

Wagner, Doctor, 22
Wine, how to take, 60
Wine-tasters, profession-
al, 147
Wood, General, 19
Wright Brothers, the,
124

Yale University, experi-
ments at, IS

Y. M. C. A. Training
School, Springfield,
test at, 29

Zuntz, Doctor Profes-
sor, 78

[224]

581927

3 1378 00581 9274

Date Due

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D2892
it is.

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